


Days, Years, Eternities

by iscatterthemintimeandspace



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Assault, Blood, Brother Feels, Character Death, Crossposted to Wattpad, F/M, Human Sacrifice, M/M, Murder, Not Really Character Death, Pagan! Gabriel, Reincarnation, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Torture, Use of transcript for canon episodes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-05-25 13:41:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6197224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iscatterthemintimeandspace/pseuds/iscatterthemintimeandspace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crawford Hall was not the first time Gabriel had met Sam Winchester. They’d met in so many times and in so many different bodies he’d lost count. The one thing he did remember though, was how many times he’d lost him</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1: Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> "When will I meet him? We meet our soulmates when we’re on our soul path." - Karen M. Black

[](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Siralop/media/tumblr_o0xcgywGKN1rlea6go1_r1_1280.jpg.html)

Gabriel wasn’t good at much. He wasn’t a born leader like Michael, or clever like Lucifer, or talented like Raphael. The only things he was good at were pranks and magic, which to his dismay, were of no great use in Heaven. He had never been the first or best of his brothers at anything, so when his Father gave him an assignment, he was taken aback.

“Father, Michael would be better. He could do a far better job than I,” he murmured, his head bowed in his Father’s presence.

“If I wanted Michael to do this, Gabriel,” he said mildly, raising the fledgling’s chin. “I would have asked him. But I did not.” His Father smiled at him, a rare but glorious sight. “I asked you.”

So Gabriel tried his hardest at the task his Father had given him, to be better than last time. He worked for many days on end, using his Grace to create and shape. He put everything he had into it, blood and sweat and tears until finally he thought it was finished. 

“What is that?” Raphael said, peeking into Gabriel’s workspace. His eyes were critical, his brows puckered into a frown. He wasn’t much older than Gabriel, but he acted as if he were Michael’s second coming.

Gabriel felt self-conscious at once, trying to shield his project from Raphael’s scrutiny. “It’s nothing.”

But Raphael would not be put off. “Let me see it.”

“No,” Gabriel said, his golden wings flaring out behind him. They hadn’t even molted fully, his baby feathers still fluffy in spots, but he puffed them up to their full size, hoping to cover his creation.

Raphael just laughed, his own larger indigo wings rising behind him in a superior imitation. He pushed Gabriel aside with almost no effort, the fledgling cowed by his size. “Is this what I think it is, little brother?” he smirked, his hand hovering over the glowing mass on Gabriel’s table. “You’re creating another soul?”

“Father asked me to,” Gabriel protested, trying to push past the expanse of his brother’s wings. “Leave it alone!”

“He’ll be so disappointed in you Gabriel, just like the first one,” Raphael crooned, patting his head. He turned and was gone without saying another word.

Gabriel’s heart broke as he stared at the soul he had created. 

Tears blurred his vision and he ran from the room, his wings still spread. He didn't look behind him as they knocked the table to the floor.

He knew it was only a matter of time before one of his brothers found him. He was hiding in the garden that surrounded their rooms, under a particularly large bush. How had he ever thought he could create something good enough to show his Father? How could he have been so stupid? Gabriel tensed under the canopy of his wings, curling into a ball when he heard the footsteps closing in on him.

“Hmmm, I heard there was a little angel hiding around here... I wonder where he's hiding.”

 _Lucifer!_ Gabriel relaxed at once, peeking through his feathers at his favorite brother.

“Ah, there he is!” Lucifer grinned and sat down next to him, scooping Gabriel into his lap. “Your wings are getting so big, Gabriel. They'll be bigger than mine soon!” He dug his fingers into Gabriel's ribs, pulling a shriek from him.

“Now, what's the matter?” Lucifer asked, his chin on Gabriel's head. He wrapped his huge wings around them both.

“Nothing.”

“Gabriel,” Lucifer prompted. “Does it have something to do with the mess in your room?”

Gabriel hesitated but then caved. He could never hide anything from Lucifer anyway. “Father gave me a task, and I tried... but it wasn't good enough.”

“Who told you it wasn't good enough?” Lucifer asked, wrapping his arms around Gabriel's middle. “Was it our Father?”

Gabriel shook his head. “Raphael said-”

Lucifer stopped and turned Gabriel on his lap, looking him in the eyes. “I don't care what Raphael said. Raphael is a-” he whispered conspiratorially in Gabriel's ear, earning another giggle. “Let's go see what we can do.”

Gabriel trailed behind Lucifer the whole way to his room, his pudgy fingers wrapped around his brother’s larger hand.

Lucifer picked up the table from the floor, setting it back up where it had stood before Gabriel had knocked it over.

Gabriel hovered over his soul, and bent to pick it up. It wasn’t damaged by the fall. Gingerly, he put it on the table, looking at Lucifer for guidance.

Lucifer pulled up the stool and patted his leg, nodding for Gabriel to join him. The fledgling scrambled into his lap.

“Raphael was lying, Gabriel,” Lucifer started, reaching out for the soul. “This one is beautiful. It just needs a few more touches.”

Gabriel was positively glowing with his brother’s praise, a smile lighting up his entire face. He leaned forward, putting his palms around the gleaming entity on his table. Lucifer put his hands over Gabriel's, entwining their fingers. 

The soul vibrated wildly as Lucifer touched it, and Gabriel felt his brother tense under him.

“What is it?” he squeaked, suddenly fearful. Had his soul hurt Lucifer? “What’s the matter?”

Lucifer relaxed, a smile curling from his lips all the way up to his eyes, causing them to glimmer. “Nothing, little one. Nothing.”

Relieved, Gabriel leaned in again, allowing Lucifer to guide him, copying his movements as Lucifer’s finger dipped inside the soul, leaving dark shimmering streaks in his wake.

It shuddered again, the brilliant scarlet and gold striped with darkness. The darkness swirled under his hands before disappearing without a trace.

“Father will be so proud of you,” Lucifer cooed, ruffling Gabriel’s hair. “Shall we go find Him?”

In the end, Lucifer was right. Their Father beamed at Gabriel when he presented the soul he had created.

“I have a special plan for this one,” he said, tucking it away in the place he kept all of the souls. He didn’t tell them what they were for, at least not yet, or that what he had planned would eventually tear Gabriel’s family apart.

~~~~~

The next time Gabriel came into contact with his creation, he was nearly a full grown angel, except that he was still hiding like a fledgling.

His brothers had never argued before, not like this. They were always a united front against anything that faced them. They had all taken down the Darkness together, fought and cried together, until the Mark their Father had given Lucifer for safe-keeping, to lock the Darkness away, had started to glow. 

Overnight, Lucifer had become volatile, argumentative, and overly-prideful, and it was driving a wedge between him and Michael. 

Gabriel couldn’t take the fighting any longer. Michael and Lucifer’s voices echoed all over Heaven, filling their home with lightening and thunder, so he did the only thing he could: he hid.

The soul library was forbidden to even them, but Gabriel was desperate. He easily circumvented his Father’s precautions and slipped into the comfortable, muted light.

The souls brightened at his arrival, glowing in soft colors. He gingerly made his way through them, careful not to touch them, and began to climb. The library was built in large ornate tiers, with ladders between each level. Gabriel went as high as he was able, until he reached the top and scrambled onto the floor. The ceiling was low here, creating the perfect space for hiding.

Gabriel curled into himself, much like when he was a fledgling, with his wings a protective barrier from the outside world. Even here, he could hear the boom of his brothers’ fighting.

Until it touched him, he hadn’t even noticed the scarlet-gold soul in the loft. It was warm as it ghosted over his wings, and he opened them slowly.

“Hey, buster,” he said. “Hands… er… matter off the wings. You’re not supposed to touch me.”

The soul ignored him and kept getting closer, breaching the protective ring.

“I’m serious!” Gabriel scooted back towards the wall. Dad’s lecture on souls rang out loud in his head.

‘You cannot touch them after they’ve been molded. They will imprint on you.’

“Scoot, you little bugger,” he flapped his wings a little, trying to blow it back. “Don’t you dare imprint on me!”

The soul came right back toward him, slipping under his feathers and nestling against his leg. His Grace pulled forward towards the soul, connecting with it. It was kind of a nice feeling, and Gabriel sighed in defeat as it made its way into his lap.

“You’re gunna get me in so much trouble, you know that?” he grumbled, petting the soul. “You can’t even understand me, can you? You’re just a- what did Luci call you? A “pointless blob”.”

Another rumble shook the library and Gabriel shivered. Why couldn’t they just stop? He hated when his brothers fought. Raphael called him a coward for avoiding them, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t take them tearing each other’s throat out.

“What happened to them?” he asked out loud, running his hands over the soul’s warm weight, staring into its swirling colors, and then it hit him. This one was his.

“I made you,” Gabriel said, leaning back on his arm. “That’s why you’re attracted to me. You recognize me.” The soul vibrated in his lap, like it understood, but it couldn’t, could it?

“Don’t get used to this, kid,” he smiled, petting the soul again. “This is the only time.”

But it was only the beginning.

~~~~

“You’ll see it one day, it’s beautiful!” Gabriel told the soul one day, using it as a pillow as he dangled his feet off the ledge. He recounted his first trip to Earth, with his brothers. Even Lucifer and Michael had been stunned into awed silence by what their Father had created. It was gorgeous and vibrant and real in a way that Heaven wasn’t. Gabriel had never wanted to leave..

They had watched as Father set his grand plan in motion, sprinkling the seeds of life into the great salty ocean. The seeds would grow and grow, he explained, until finally a little fish would flop out onto dry land and become his greatest creations, something he called “humans”.

 

Gabriel rolled over, burying his face in the soul and inhaling. It smelled comforting, musky and alive.

There was a flutter of wings below him. He froze. If someone found him in here, he would be in trouble. Dad had big, big plans for the souls, and even though he didn’t let Gabriel in on them, he would be in serious trouble for messing with them. He crawled on his belly and peeked over the edge.

As soon as Gabriel saw him, he sighed in relief. It was only Castiel.

The fledgling with the fluffy black wings had taken to following him around everywhere.

“Castiel,” he called, waving his arms. “Don’t touch the-”

But it was already too late. Castiel had bumped into one of the souls on the ground floor.

“Ah crap.” Gabriel flew down from his perch to rescue his little brother. The other souls started to crowd around the small angel, desperate for a touch. Gabriel pulled Castiel out just in time, dragging him to the safety of his perch.

“What have I told you about following me?”

Castiel shifted uncomfortably. “You told me not to follow you.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “So why did you? You’re gunna get me in trouble!”

“Michael and Lucifer are fighting again. I was scared.” Castiel’s lip quivered as he talked, his wings shaking.

Gabriel didn’t blame him. Their fights were getting worse and worse lately and their Father locked himself away, seeing no one at all.

“Tell you what, Castiel, let’s go on a field trip!”

Castiel didn’t have time to object before Gabriel was dragging him down towards the Earth.

They landed beside the same ocean that Gabriel had been telling his soul about, the same waters where God had planted the seeds of life. If Gabriel counted correctly, it should be right about time…

A fish flopped out of the water and crawled onto dry land.

“Don’t step on that fish, Castiel,” Gabriel instructed carefully. “Big plans for that fish.”

He pulled his little brother into his lap and sat on the ground, watching in awe as the creature took its first real breath and then scuttered away.

“Gabriel?” 

“Yes, Cassie?” Gabriel answered, burrowing his nose into his little brother’s jet-black hair. 

“Were you hiding in the library?” Castiel asked, turning back and looking up at Gabriel. 

“No, I was- I was-” Gabriel sputtered. “Yes, I was hiding.” 

“They scare me when they yell,” Castiel murmured, curling even farther into Gabriel’s lap, black fluffy wings drawn around him. 

“They scare me too, kiddo,” he admitted, wrapping his own wings around them both. 

“Will they ever stop?” Castiel ventured, his hands threading through the ends of Gabriel's golden wings. 

“I don’t know, Cassie. I just don’t know.”

~~~~

“Gabriel?”

 _‘Crap. I’m caught. Dad’s gunna kill me,’_ Gabriel thought turning around quickly. He was caught red-handed outside of the soul library after his latest visit. 

“Oh Lucifer,” he breathed a sigh when he saw his favorite elder brother, instead of Michael or, Dad forbid, Dad. “You scared me.” 

Lucifer smirked, eyeing him warily. “Yes, it’s only me,” he responded, throwing a brotherly arm over Gabriel’s shoulder. “You are late for our lesson. I was worried.” 

“Nothing to worry about, brother,” Gabriel ventured, shrugging off Lucifer’s arm. “I was just… uhh… curious about what Dad does with the souls in here. But I can’t get past the security… so let’s go.” 

“Not so fast little brother,” Lucifer grinned, reaching out and dragging Gabriel back towards the library door. “I’m sure we can just take a peek…”

Gabriel pulled back, dragging his heels in the dirt. “I don’t think this is such a good idea.” 

“Where’s your sense of fun, Gabriel?” Lucifer teased, his free hand reaching out for the door. “You said you were curious. Why don’t we just see what’s inside?”

His hand gripped the doorknob and the sky above them filled with a crack of thunder. 

Michael. 

Their eldest brother dropped out of the clouds, glaring at them both. 

“What are you doing?” he questioned, his hand on the pommel of his sword. 

“N-n-nothing,” Gabriel sputtered, pulling his hand quickly from Lucifer’s. Even after he was grown, there was nothing that scared him more than Michael’s wrath. 

“Hello, brother,” Lucifer sneered, sauntering up to Michael. “Maybe you can tell us. What is Father keeping those “souls” for? They are useless here, so why does he want us to make them? Why even bother?”

Michael glowered at the both of them, looking every inch the commander he was. “It is part of Father’s plan. It is not our place to question it.” 

“Don’t you ever wonder, Michael?” Lucifer taunted, circling his eldest brother. “Have you ever had an original thought in your life?”

“It is not our place to question Father or his plans, Lucifer,” Michael bit back, his pure white wings flaring out behind him. “It would serve you well to remember who you serve.” 

“And if I do not?” Lucifer challenged, standing his ground. Gabriel was behind them, spellbound and terrified at the sight of them. “What would you do then?” 

Gabriel wanted to yell at them to stop, to get between them in some way, but he knew it would do no good. They would ignore him as they always had, too busy with each other to pay attention to who they were really hurting. 

“I would do as our Father commanded.” Michael’s grip on his sword tightened, but Lucifer only grinned. “The Mark has changed you, brother. When Father said there was a price for locking the Darkness away, I did not think it would be this.”

“Come, Gabriel,” he announced, his voice a taunting song. “Let us leave our brother to his business.” Lucifer turned his back on Michael, brushing off his concern and throwing a smug glance over his shoulder as he motioned for Gabriel. 

Gabriel followed meekly behind him, anxious to get away from the turmoil. His heart was pounding in his chest as he took off into the sky, leaving Michael seething behind them. 

No sooner had they landed in his own little corner of a cloud than Lucifer exploded, screaming for all the Heavens to hear. 

“Prideful! Arrogant!” he yelled, his words echoing. “Self- important bastard! Why does Father only share his plans with him? Does he not trust me?” The Mark their Father had given him glowed like a dying ember on his skin, branching over his arm as he screamed.

Gabriel stayed quiet, scared of the drastic change in his brother, unsure whether or not to share his secret about the library, about how to get in, or what he saw inside. He decided to stay quiet. 

“Am I not as good as Michael?” Lucifer wheeled on Gabriel, his face alight with fervor. “Tell me, Gabriel, am I not as trustworthy? Not as strong?” 

“You are. You are better than he is. More clever,” Gabriel soothed, putting a comforting hand on his brother’s shoulder. It killed him to see proud Lucifer like this, reduced to begging and self-doubt. “More talented.”

Finally Lucifer calmed down, unclenching his hands and breathing slow and deep. He looked down at Gabriel and smiled reassuringly. “Shall we begin then?” 

Gabriel released a breath he didn’t know he was holding, and nodded, grateful to have his favorite brother back, and not the angry monster he had been mere minutes ago. 

Lucifer began by conjuring images out of thin air, vivid imitations of objects and scenery spooling out in the vacant space. 

Gabriel moved to copy him, painting the same scene with a different brush, a little sharper, a little brighter. This was how their lessons always began, a little competition to see who could outdo the other. Lucifer almost always won, but sometimes Gabriel surprised him and he lived for those moments. 

Lucifer moved on quickly today, as if spurred by their earlier confrontation to do better. He created a duplicate of himself, that looked so solid Gabriel had to reach out and touch it. 

He was entranced by the double, running his hands over it, feeling the give of his flesh and muscle. 

“It’s real!?” he burst out, unable to tear his eyes away. 

Lucifer laughed at his reaction. “Of course he’s real,” he said, circling around Gabriel and his double. “Illusions only do so much, little brother.” 

“Will you teach me?” Gabriel touched the double again before Lucifer waved it away, leaving no indication it had ever been there. “That’s incredible!”

Lucifer drank in his praises, creating another double, this time of Gabriel. Gabriel’s eyes bulged as he surveyed his body double, poking and prodding as it pleased him. 

“Does my nose really look like that?” 

Lucifer chuckled again. “Vanity, brother. Michael would be appalled.” He snapped again, replacing the double with a scowling vision of Michael. 

“How did you learn this? Who taught you?” Gabriel pressed, hesitant on touching the double. Even if he wasn’t the real Michael, he was scary enough not to cross the line. 

“I taught myself,” Lucifer answered as he dispatched the double with another snap of his fingers. “We were alone a long time before Father saw fit to create you and Raphael. Listening to Michael would drive anyone to create another form of entertainment.” 

Gabriel bit back a laugh, before trying to create a double himself. He had created images before, but never as solid as Lucifer had just shown him. He snapped. 

Rubbing his chin, Lucifer circled what he had created, a double of their brother, Raphael. He put his hand out, penetrating the first layer, but becoming stuck towards the middle. It was far more solid than his illusory doubles, but not quite whole yet.

“Concentrate, Gabriel,” Lucifer admonished. “Think back to what I’ve taught you about duplication. Same principle, different application.” 

Gabriel wracked his brain, thumbing through their lessons in his head. When he had first learned to make copies, Lucifer had had him make multiple at the same time, increasing the number of them until they were so densely packed, neither he nor Lucifer could move despite the fact they were transparent. If he could just…

Snap!

Lucifer’s double stood next to him, crossing his arms in a perfect mime of the actual angel. The real Lucifer reached out again and poked his double in the arm, bestowing Gabriel a smile when he bounced back. 

“Good,” he praised lightly. “I bet you can’t make more than one!”

Gabriel could never turn down a challenge, and soon he and Lucifer were filling his corner of Heaven with body doubles of their brothers, peeking out from behind them.

It wasn’t often that Gabriel heard Lucifer laugh like this, not for a long time, a deep full belly laugh that filled him with joy. Lucifer began slicing through the doubles, particularly the ones of Michael, with his angel blade, cackling as he watched them hit the floor and fade.

Gabriel didn’t hit the doubles, they looked too real for him to be able to do anything to them other than making them disappear. He kept a close eye on Lucifer, growing more uneasy as the doubles collapsed. He watched his brother laugh maniacally as he cut down each body, never even flinching.

“I will show him,” he chuckled darkly. “I will show them both.” 

~~~~

Heaven was atwitter when their Father announced his project was finally ready. He called them all down to the surface of the Earth in their splendid glory to reveal what he had been so studiously labouring over for so long. 

Most of the angels were excited. Gabriel was nervous. 

He knew of the things his Father had created, the things which they were not allowed to interact with. “Humans” he called them, and he spent more time on Earth with them than he did with his children in Heaven. Lucifer threw jealous scenes of over it; he did not like sharing their Father’s attention. He was far too used to being the favorite, even with his change in temperament. 

“I don’t like it,” Gabriel told his soul, curled in the loft of the soul library. “It feels like something is going to happen.” The soul vibrated in his lap, under his hands as if trying to reassure him. 

“What do you know anyway?” he snapped, irritated beyond words. He didn’t even know why he kept coming up here to talk to something that couldn’t talk back. Was he that desperate? “You’re just a useless blob, a lump of nothing, destined for nothing.” He shoved the soul off of his lap angrily and stood up. 

The soul made a sound that made Gabriel think it was sad, a low mournful noise that pricked along his arms and wings. He turned away and flew down from his perch, feeling guilty for taking his tension out on his soul. 

Security in the library had tightened ever since Lucifer's attempt to open the door. Gabriel had seen Michael guarding it sometimes, which was strange. Michael was the commander of all the armies of Heaven, him guarding something as mundane as the library of souls meant big business with what lay inside. He had had to cut his visits to avoid detection. 

Gabriel joined his excited brothers and sisters, standing in his place next to Raphael, Michael, and Lucifer. Despite his stony facade, Gabriel could tell that Michael was excited. There was a certain smug air about him that usually denoted something big was happening. 

Earth had blossomed in the time since Gabriel had been there last. No more was the land barren of creatures and vegetation, every inch was crawling with life. Finally, Gabriel’s eyes fell on the most magnificent place he had ever seen. 

It was a garden, filled with lush trees laden with fruit, soft green grass, creatures of all shapes and sizes, and them. 

Their Father motioned them all over to look at the two pink upright animals bare of fur and looking back with eyes much like theirs. There was a strange glimmer about them that Gabriel instantly recognized: Souls.

So this was their Father’s plan then. 

“I call them humans,” he said slowly. “I sprinkled the seeds of life into the water and they grew. I imbued them with the souls you all have toiled over. I made them in my image and gave them souls. They shall roam the Earth.” 

He turned and faced the humans. “This is Adam,” he pointed to the taller one. “And this is Eve. I want you to love them, and their kin, more than you love me.” 

Dissent broke out in whispers among the angels. Love them more than they loved their Father? 

Gabriel watched his brothers. Michael dropped to his knees immediately, offering his sword on the ground. Raphael kneeled next, his head even lower than Michael’s. One by one, the angels kneeled, following their commander’s example, until only Gabriel and Lucifer were left standing. 

Their Father smiled at them. “Gabriel? Lucifer?” 

“Y-yes Father,” Gabriel stuttered, slumping to his knees. He looked up at Lucifer, silently begging him to follow suit. 

But Lucifer stood, proud and tall, the mark on his arm glowing red. 

“Father, I can’t. These humans are flawed! Liars!”

There was a collective gasp in the crowd of angels, all of them looking at their Father to see what would happen. None of them had ever talked to their Father that way. 

Michael grabbed his sword from the ground, fire burning in his eyes. 

“Allow me to teach him manners, Father,” Michael growled. 

Their Father put up his hand. “That won't be necessary, Michael,” he said, his voice holding an edge that Gabriel had never heard his Father use before. 

“Lucifer, I grow tired of this childish petulance. Bow,” he commanded, his voice shaking the ground under their feet. Everything around Gabriel rumbled as if it too was angry. He couldn’t breathe, terror gripping his entire body. 

“No,” Lucifer sneered back, his back ramrod straight, eyes never wavering from their Father even for a second. “I will not.” 

Their Father raised his hand, and Gabriel could stand it no longer. He rose to his feet, hands clenched in his robe, knees knocking together in fright. 

“Father!” he cried, his voice cracking. “Father, forgive him please! There’s something wrong. Don’t you see it-”

His Father turned towards him and his eyes softened. “Gabriel, enough,” he chided him mildly and cast an eye towards his older son. “Be thankful that your brother stayed my hand, Lucifer,” he warned. “Next time there will be no second chance.” 

And with that, he dismissed the host back to Heaven, leaving Lucifer and Gabriel standing in the dirt. 

“Lucifer, I couldn’t- please-” Gabriel started, but his brother cut him off. 

“Stop groveling, Gabriel,” he snapped, crossing the space between them in the blink of an eye, his brother’s hands grabbing the neck of his robe. “I need no one’s help, least of all yours.” 

Gabriel couldn’t help it, he began to cry. This monster wearing Lucifer’s face wasn’t the kind, protective brother he knew. His Lucifer would never disobey their Father, would never threaten him with violence. 

His tears seemed to snap Lucifer out from his angry trance, and his face softened and then crumpled. He crushed Gabriel against his chest, holding him as if he were a fledgling again. 

“Gabriel,” he sobbed, his tears soaking Gabriel’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. Please, forgive me. I don’t know what’s happening to me.” 

Gabriel clung to his brother, petting his golden hair and fiery wings to soothe him. He closed his eyes and prayed to his Father. 

_‘Father, please help him. Something is wrong, why do you not see it?_

_Please help him._

_Amen.’_

~~~

Things in Heaven went from bad to worse, and Gabriel spent more and more time holed up in the Library hiding from his brothers. 

Their fights had taken on a new level of intensity since the incident on Earth, Michael following Lucifer around like a pompous guard. 

Gabriel couldn’t stomach any of it. He loved them both so much and it made him sick to watch them tear at each other’s throats, each daring the other to go in for the kill. 

Even though the souls were now being used, assigned to humans and then recycled, his soul stayed safely tucked away in the loft and he was grateful for its presence even if it couldn’t talk. 

He had drifted off one afternoon in the library, when a commotion from below startled him. The door flung open, flooding the room with light. He distinctly recognized two voices… Michael and Lucifer. 

He peeked over the edge and watched as they grappled, bellowing insults at each other. Lucifer’s face was a healing, bloody mess, Michael’s a mask of anger and contempt. 

Michael threw Lucifer to the ground and unsheathed his sword. 

Gabriel’s heart dropped into his stomach with fear. Michael had come close before, would he do it now with Lucifer goading him on? 

He watched in horror as Michael raised his sword to strike his brother down. 

He was off his perch before he knew what he was doing, throwing himself in front of Lucifer without a moment’s hesitation. 

“Stop!” he yelled, his hands up defensively. “Michael, stop!” 

Michael’s eyes flashed at him, and the sword came down anyway, slashing at Gabriel’s outstretched arm and knocking him to the ground. 

“Get out of my way, Gabriel,” he snarled, advancing once again. He stood over Lucifer, staring down at the brother he had once loved, the brother he’d raised, and he hesitated. 

“Brother, don’t make me do this,” Michael pleaded. 

“No one makes us do anything,” Lucifer snarled, using Michael’s hesitation to sink his angel blade into his leg. Michael screamed, and Gabriel did the only thing he could do — he ran. 

He ran until his legs were tired, and then he flew until his wings burned with exhaustion. Gabriel was as far away as he could possibly be, but it wasn’t quite far enough. He had nowhere to go, his sanctuary now tainted. That left him only one option: Earth. 

Gabriel didn’t want to leave, he loved his Father and his brothers and sisters more than anything, but he couldn't take the tension anymore. It was only a matter of time before Michael and Lucifer killed each other, and that would kill him. He curled up under his wings, like he had as a fledgling and summoned the last of his strength. 

He knew what he had to do, and even that wouldn’t work for long, but it would give him time to get away. Gabriel snapped, pulling up a copy of himself, just like Lucifer had taught him so long ago. Lucifer and Michael would know almost immediately that it was a copy, but as long as his double stayed away from them, just like he’d been doing recently, he would have no problem with the other angels. 

He felt a stab of guilt for leaving Castiel, but he pushed it away for the time being. Hopefully Cas had the good sense their Father gave a toadstool, and would keep his head down. Gabriel knew, had always known that Cas was different from the others. There would be trouble there eventually, but how was he supposed to protect Castiel if he couldn’t even protect himself? 

Gabriel gave his double one last once over, giving him instructions to stay away from his Father, Michael, and Lucifer as long as he was able. By the time they figured it out, he’d be long gone. 

He looked back one more time over his home and said a silent farewell to his brothers and sisters. His only regret as he sailed down to Earth was that he couldn’t say goodbye to his soul, too. 

_See ya later, kiddo._

[](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Siralop/media/commission.png.html)


	2. Part 2: Rome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same" ~Emily Brontë

Gabriel liked Rome. It was overcrowded and bustling, a perfect place for someone who didn’t want to be found. He’d spent the greater part of the last thousand years (or was it ten thousand? He had lost track after a while) bouncing around from place to place, trying to stay ahead of his siblings. In Rome, no one asked too many questions as long as you paid in cash, and that was just fine by him. He deserved a long vacation. 

He had a nice little place on the Regia, near the Temple of Vesta, where he could easily get lost in the throngs of worshippers. 

The temple was by far his favorite building in Rome. Germanus (as he was now known) went there every day to lay his offerings and ogle the pretty young priestesses who cleaned the temple and kept the sacred fire going. 

Humans had come very far since Adam and Eve, and Gabriel found himself drawn to them, both men and women. Greece had been good for that, much more free when it came to sex. But Rome had its own perks. 

Gabriel could almost imagine Lucifer’s face of disgust if he found out his favorite brother was “slumming it” with the humans he hated. It made him laugh. 

Gabriel had just finished visiting his mistress and was returning to his home. He was in the habit of stopping at the temple on his way, if only to enjoy how the setting sun lit up the temple’s round edifice, when he saw the priestess. 

A young woman in coarse clothing slipped out of the temple, pulling a shawl up over her hair, which was still in the seven-braid style of a priestess. ‘Hmmm, a runaway vestal.’ Gabriel felt a tug on his grace, as if he was supposed to go to her. He was stunned, the pull of Heaven had been completely silent after he’d left home. He had never felt anything like it before, not since… He stood completely still for a moment, his heart wildly beating in his chest. A couple minutes after she’d slinked out of sight, he followed after her. 

He watched her look over her shoulder and adjust her shawl every couple steps as she pattered through back streets silent as a ghost. The girl — she couldn’t be more than eighteen or nineteen years old — carried a basket under her arm, wrapped up in a bundle he took to be food of some sort. 

Gabriel followed a couple paces behind her until she came to a small, rundown hovel. She knocked carefully on the door, pulling her shawl up farther. She was doing a good job so far, he still hadn’t seen her face. 

There was laughter of children when the door opened, and the priestess was accosted by three grimy children. An older woman in a worn palla smiled at her and led her into the house. A warm glow illuminated the windows of the hovel. For the first time he saw her face, and his knees nearly gave way under him.

He recognized her. 

From Heaven. 

His soul, the swirling red and gold soul he’d left so many years ago. Gabriel felt as though he was going to be sick. He hadn’t thought about his soul in years, it was less painful that way. 

He had tried to cut out this part of him, the part that missed Heaven so badly it physically hurt. He trained himself to see faces, not souls and let them die, even when he could save them. He wasn’t an angel anymore, he couldn’t afford to be. 

The priestess opened the door of the hovel, waving goodbye at the small family, before she readjusted her shawl and stepped out on to the street. 

She was pretty, in a youthful sort of way, with plump cheeks that spoke of a girl not long out of her childhood. Her hazel eyes were framed with fierce, dark eyebrows and her lips were thin, barely hiding the way her top teeth peeked out from them. 

Gabriel ducked into an alley to avoid being seen. He couldn’t let her see him. He was afraid of what might happen if her soul latched onto him again. 

When she passed him, he watched her go, already making plans to leave Rome. He had to. It wasn’t safe for either of them to be close like this. Who knew what kind of signals were being broadcasted even now. 

He turned to go when he saw them, ruffians grinning to each other. There were two of them, grubby and slick, motioning towards the street where his priestess had walked not two minutes earlier. 

Gabriel’s heart dropped and he found himself following after them. ‘You can’t save her,’ he admonished himself. ‘They’ll find you.’ His brothers would never stop looking for him, but he kept moving forward. He couldn’t just leave her. 

They had cornered her when he finally caught up to them, leering at her as she stared them down. 

Gabriel’s blade was in his hand as he approached them. “You wouldn’t happen to be giving the priestess any trouble, would you?” he asked, grinning at them. 

“Get lost,” one of them grumbled at him, grabbing the girl by the arm. She cuffed him around the side of his head.

Gabriel narrowed his eyes and snapped his fingers, ignoring the panicked beating of his heart. “You’re leaving now,” he growled. “Never bother her again.” 

The two men looked at him in confusion, but then marched away fighting their own feet at every step. 

Relief flashed across his priestess face, and then she hardened. She was small, but the murderous look in her dark eyes made her seem much bigger. She looked up at him and froze. 

Gabriel knew that in some fashion, she recognized him, her soul reaching out to him. He felt it too, the same warmth as when he had touched his soul in the library. 

“W-why are you following me?” she stuttered, her fists clenched at her sides. 

“Why are you sneaking out of the temple?” he shot back, raising a questioning eyebrow at her. He felt lighter than he had in centuries. 

“Someone has to feed them,” she challenged. “Her husband died and he left her nothing.” 

Gabriel’s face softened. “My name is Germanus, domina. Allow me to walk you back to the temple?” 

The priestess hesitated for a moment and then after some deliberation, offered him her arm. “I’m Sabina, and you may.” 

Gabriel took and tucked it under his, feeling a shock as she made contact with him. The intake of her breath told him she felt it too. 

After a half a mile of silence, she finally spoke. “Why do I feel as if I know you?” 

“M-my face, it’s common,” he stuttered, quite unprepared for her question. There was no way she’d believe him even if he told her. 

Sabina gave him a hard look. “Thank you for back there,” she murmured, hanging her head as they approached the temple. 

“You’re welcome,” he responded, letting go of her arm. He couldn’t go any farther with her. Vestals were not allowed in the company of men except their sworn escorts, not without the penalty of death. 

Sabina pulled her shawl up over her head again. “Do you live near the temple?” she whispered. 

Gabriel eyed her questioningly. “Yes, domina.” 

“I have another delivery of bread and oil tomorrow. I will need an escort. The streets are dangerous,” Sabina said quietly. 

He smiled at her as she hurried back to the temple. “Yes, domina.”

~~~

That was how it started, their little night time charity missions of Gabriel escorting Sabina back and forth to slums with baskets full of bread. He’d wait for her in the doorway of his home and drop her off at the edge of the temple grounds each night. 

That was how he found out about her siblings (two older brothers and an older sister), her parents (still married, something rare of patricians), her best friend Decima and her love of green food. She told him about her childhood and her initiation into the temple when she was seven years old. 

Gabriel just listened to her, interjecting only when he had a question. The less she knew about him the better. It was bad enough he had agreed to be her escort. That’s all he wanted to be, he told himself, as he counted the hours until he could see her again. That’s all he could be. Humans died, and he wouldn’t get attached. 

He learned Rome as she knew it, from the names and stories of the families she served, to the best place to get ofaelle.

Domina Julia, with her three small children and warm smile, were by far his favorite family to visit. She treated him like another son, feeding him until his stomach hurt (he didn’t need to eat, but it would break her heart if he didn’t) and fretting over his health (even if he never got sick). Gabriel watched her give Sabina sad smiles when she thought he wasn’t looking. 

“Why does she look at you like that?” he asked later on their way home. 

“Why won’t you tell me about your family?” Sabina shot back, fixing her face in a look that he would come to know later on as a “bitch face”. 

Gabriel sighed. He knew she wouldn’t give up, it was part of her charm. “Would you like to join me for some wine?” 

Sabina gave him a questioning look and then nodded, looking over her shoulder as she followed him into his house. 

Gabriel’s house was warm and cozy, a simple three room affair, sparsely decorated. He moved around too much to allow himself to acquire significant possessions, but he had a few creature comforts. 

He took the bottle from the sideboard and poured two goblets, handing one to her as he sat on the low couch. He gestured for her to sit down on the other. 

“My family is… complicated,” he explained, looking into his goblet. He hadn’t said a word about his brothers in hundreds of years and they didn’t come easy. His throat was thick and tight as he thought of Lucifer, Michael, Castiel and the others. Her eyes made it easier. 

“I come from a big family. I loved my brothers more than life itself. But they fought and I couldn’t take it anymore, so I ran,” Gabriel relayed without taking a breath. 

“She’s scared,” Sabina murmured suddenly, her eyes huge and sad, curls hanging in her face. Her shawl had slipped down, revealing her head of dark hair, shining like he’d never seen it. 

“What?” 

“She looks at me that way because she’s scared,” she explained, rolling her goblet in her hand. “For me. For a vestal, the penalty of being caught with a man is death.” 

Gabriel nodded. He had known that. “Then we should stop,” he responded, his heart cracking a little at the thought. 

Sabina looked as if she might cry, her lashes dark with tears. “We aren’t doing anything wrong,” she protested. “You saved my life, and now you’re helping me save others. If that's not the work of the goddess, I don’t know what is.” 

Gabriel considered this for a moment, draining his glass. He had met Vesta once, when he accidentally spilled his drink into her hearth, putting it out (Bacchus threw some wild parties, he thought sickly, making a mental note never to drink with him again). 

“As long as you go, I’ll go, domina,” Gabriel said. He wasn’t going to let her walk alone because Heaven knew neither hell nor high water would stop Sabina from going where she wanted. She had a stubborn determination that he both admired and rued. He was just there to make sure it didn’t get her killed. 

“I have asked you to stop calling me that.” Finally Sabina smiled, setting her glass down on the sideboard. 

“Domina,” Gabriel teased back, basking in the chuckle it earned.

Later, when she had gone, he recalled her smile, the way it had made her dimples deepen and lit up her whole face. 

He memorized the hazel of her eyes, the spray of freckles on her nose, the curl of her hair and told himself he wasn’t in love. He savored her endless kindness, her adoration of helping people, and catalogued it away. He’d been there once before, a long time ago. Gabriel had learned the hard way that falling in love with a human was foolish. He couldn’t afford it, so he swallowed the light she made him feel, and committed it to memory, to peruse at his leisure when she was dead and gone. 

That day would come much sooner than he thought.

~~~

Winter in Rome was beautiful. Gabriel never liked the cold, but there was something to be said about drinking warm mead at his window while the snow fell. There was a cool crispness to everything now, Rome’s inherent rhythm slowed to molasses by the weather. 

Despite the weather, Gabriel found himself accompanying Sabina more and more often, as the cold only made survival harder.

Sabina had been rattling on and off about Saturnalia, a Roman holiday which she described as her favorite, where people dressed up, masters served their slaves, and gambling, normally forbidden to the populace, was allowed. He’d heard of it before, of course, but had deigned not to participate, too much risk for running into other gods who could out him for what he was. 

But as the holiday approached, she stopped talking about it completely. 

“You were so excited about Saturnalia,” he prodded one night as they walked back toward the temple. “What happened?” 

Sabina shot him an annoyed look from underneath her shawl. “Nothing happened,” she snapped back at him, walking faster. 

“You can’t go, can you?” Gabriel guessed. It wouldn’t surprise him, the Vestals were banned from the more fun of Rome’s holidays. There was no way highborn virgins were going to be allowed to carouse with drunk, dressed up men. 

From her silence, he knew he had hit the nail on the head. 

“We could just sneak out like we do every night,” he suggested. “It would be fun. Domina Julia and the children would love it!” 

He knew that ploy would work. Sabina would do anything for the widow and her family. She gave him another dirty look and stomped back to the temple, leaving him laughing in the dust.

She didn’t come out the next night and the next, and Gabriel was a little afraid he’d offended her. But when on the Saturnalia night she knocked on his door, clutching baskets of bread, the thought went completely out of his head. 

“Would you help me, you great oaf?!” she bellowed at him, her baskets full to bursting. Gabriel laughed as he took her load. 

“I didn’t think you were coming,” he admitted as he watched her take off her cloak. “I -” his mouth dropped as he saw her. 

She looked gorgeous. There was no other way to say it. 

Instead of the homespun palla she normally wore on their excursions, she was dressed like a Roman gladiatrix, a female gladiator, complete with a toy sword in her belt. Her eyes were outlined in malachite and antimony, bringing out the hazel in her eyes. Her curly hair was pulled back from her face, revealing the sharpness of her features. She looked ferocious, like a lion, like the goddess Minerva made flesh. 

She looked as if she could tear him in two if she wanted to. 

And boy did he want her to. 

Gabriel swallowed, his throat suddenly dry as a desert. “Uh… wow?” 

Her smile blazed as she gave herself a quick once over. “Thank you. I borrowed it from Decima. I brought one for you, too.” Sabina bent over and took out a wrapped parcel for him. 

Gabriel eyed her dubiously. “I was just going to go out like this,” he showed her his new toga. 

She laughed at him. “This was your idea. Go put it on.” 

Grumbling, Gabriel retreated to his bedroom. 

“Oh Gods no!” 

He heard Sabina cackling from the living room as he got dressed. It would seem she already knew what was in the package. She had set him up. 

“I am not wearing this,” he decided out loud, stepping into the room. Sabina doubled over on his couch in a fit of giggles.

She had given him the costume of a retiarius, a net fighter. To say his outfit was scandalous was being generous. 

The retiarius wore a loincloth held by a wide leather belt, and little else. There was a large armguard that extended up over his shoulder and the left side of his chest, and he was armed with a net and a trident. Aside from a scrap of cloth, he was basically nude. 

“You couldn’t have picked a gladiator with more clothes?” he accused, looking down at himself. He wasn’t a gladiator, he didn’t have the body for it, he thought, poking at his belly. He enjoyed sweets and wine a little too much. “I’m going to freeze!”

“You look… great!” Sabina murmured, blushing profusely. She handed him his thickest wool cloak from the peg on the wall. “Uhhh let’s get going?” 

She brought a helmet out of one of her many bags and put it down over her head, obscuring her face. Suddenly he very clearly saw why she had picked the costumes, no one would think twice about the helmet. No one would see a runaway vestal, just a man and a woman celebrating. 

Sabina loaded him down with baskets of food and they were on their merry way, doling out bread and treats to all their usual patrons. More often than not, they were greeted with a glass of wine or two (Most of it tasted like vinegar, but Gabriel didn’t say anything). They saved Domina Julia for last. 

She smiled when they got to her door, her children screeching in excitement. While Sabina doled out the gifts and sweets she’d brought for them, Domina Julia pulled him aside, out of Sabina’s hearing. 

“You should be more careful,” she whispered behind her hand. “The Vestals, they watch. They will know.” 

Gabriel patted her arm gently. “There is nothing to know, domina,” he said truthfully. 

Julia clicked her tongue knowingly at him. “I’m old, Germanus,” she chided. “But I’m not blind. I see the way you watch her, the same way she watches you.” 

Gabriel felt his face heat up and he looked from the widow to where Sabina was playing with the children. As if sensing his gaze, she looked up catching his eye and smiling at him. 

The former angel shook his head. _‘No,’_ he scolded himself. _‘You cannot do this. You cannot get attached to humans!’_ But he knew it was too late, he was already attached.

He smiled sadly at Julia. “Thank you for the warning, domina.” 

She patted his hair. “You’re a good boy.” 

He almost laughed at that, imagining her face if she knew how old he was. It was times like this when he felt every second of his true age. 

After they had said their goodbyes, feeling considerably lighter, Gabriel and Sabina departed. 

Well, Gabriel departed; Sabina slipped on the freshly-fallen snow and fell on her butt. Gabriel started laughing, unable to control himself. Sabina, not to be made a fool of, packed the snow into a ball and hit him in the face. 

He grinned at her as he wiped it from his face. She ran, and Gabriel gave chase, scooping up handfuls of snow as he went, making a revenge snowball for when he finally caught her. He traversed the snowy streets easily, until he could see her no more. He followed the well travelled street by his home, knowing there were plenty of nooks for her to ambush him from. 

“Sabina,” he called, shivering under his cloak. He pulled it tightly around him, listening carefully for her breathing. “Where are you?” 

Another snowball came down on his head from behind him, and he reached out quickly to grab the perpetrator before she escaped. He pulled her to his body, trapping her with his arm. Gabriel held the snowball aloft, ready to drop it onto her face, when she kissed him. 

It was like nothing he’d ever felt before, so much more than a mere touch of skin to skin. There was something electric behind it, the imprint of her soul reaching out to touch his grace. It was intoxicating. 

He drank her in, cupping her warm face between his cold fingers. He knew he should pull away, but he couldn’t make himself let go. 

Sabina’s hands were on his chest, splayed flat on his naked skin, his heart hammering against her palms. 

Gabriel finally pushed away, taking deep gulping breaths like he was drowning. “Sabina,” he whispered, savoring her name like fine wine on his tongue. “We can’t-” 

There were snowflakes on her eyelashes, her face pink from the cold. “Please,” she murmured. Her voice was low, and she was breathing rapidly. “No one will know.” 

She leaned in again, kissing up his neck, nibbling at his ear lobe. “Please. I have never wanted anything more.” 

Gabriel needed no more prompting than that, he scooped her up in one motion, laughing as she squealed in his ear. He spun her around as the snow fell around them, kissing her forehead, her nose, her cheek, her breasts right there in the open before leading her back to his home. 

Neither one of them noticed the candle being put out in the temple window. 

~~~

For months they indulged in their illicit love affair, safe in the cocoon of their love. Gabriel could not remember a time he’d been happier than this, a time when he wanted nothing more than a fire in his hearth and his love in his bed. 

He was drunk on it, addicted to the feeling of when they touched, his grace set aflame by their bond. He would realize later they were careless, but it did not occur to him then. 

One night he waited for her, curled with a blanket and wine, waiting until the sun came up. She never showed. Gabriel didn’t worry, never suspected a thing until Domina Julia banged on his door. 

He answered with his usual smile, but it withered when he saw the tear tracks on her face. Outside while he had been waiting, Rome was in an uproar, gathering and biding their time for a different kind of blood sport, the punishment of an unchaste Vestal. 

She warned him, told him to flee Rome, for the punishment for a Vestal’s lover was death as well, by whipping at the Forum Boarium. 

Sabina had already been condemned by the college of pontifices and stripped of her vittae and the other badges of office, he learned from the gossip in the excited crowd. One of her fellow Vestals had given evidence against them, but Sabina had not named him, had refused to condemn him as well. 

For the first time since he came to Rome, despite the consequences, he tried to fly to her, hopeful that he could save her, but he found his way blocked. He could not reach her. Something was keeping him from interfering. Just as he had been to stop his brothers, Gabriel was helpless.

She was going to die because of him, and he could do nothing to prevent it. Gabriel ran behind the carriage that carried her, pushing through the throngs of people. If he couldn’t fly to her, he would run instead. 

His lungs and muscles burned when they reached the Campus Sceleratus, a field outside the Colline Gate. The hole had already been dug, the executioners standing ready to fill it back in. 

He ran towards the hill, heart thumping painfully in his chest, until he hit the barrier again, the same one that had blocked him before. He tried everything to remove it, hitting it with his grace, with his wings and finally in a show of desperate frustrations, with his fists, but it didn’t budge and he was consigned to watch the woman he loved be buried alive. 

The Pontificate Maximus raised his hands and then opened the door of the litter. Sabina stepped out of the carriage that had conducted her through the Forum, her head held proudly for all to see. She looked even more like a warrior now than she had on Saturnalia, eyes flashing with fire, refusing to be cowed. 

He screamed her name, but his voice was carried away by the wind. He fought against the barrier again as the Pontificate handed her over to the executioners. She was dressed like a corpse prepared for burial. 

Gabriel couldn’t breathe, tears streaming down his face as he banged his fists bloody. His throat was raw, scraped by his cries until he could make nothing but useless noise. 

Sabina was looking out into the crowd now, scanning for faces, for him. Through the pounding in his head, he could hear her prayers. 

_Germanus, I love you..._

She had never even known his real name. 

_Germanus..._

The executioner offered his hand to escort Sabina down to the pit but she didn’t take it. Delicately she lifted the hem of her gown as she stepped down the stairs and disappeared from sight. 

_I love you..._

The executioner and his assistant began to fill in the dirt, and Sabina’s prayers grew more frightened. 

_Please… someone... save me…_ Please...

The crowd began to disperse as the executioners filed the last shovelfuls of dirt over the grave. Finally they patted the earth and walked away, with their shovels slung over their shoulders. 

_Please..._

Gabriel knew they had given Sabina food and water, so they wouldn’t be responsible for her death. Maybe, if he waited until nightfall, he could dig her out… His grace snapped uncomfortably. 

Her prayers stopped. 

Gabriel tried to beat against the barrier again to find it gone. He raced up the hill and fell to his knees on the grave, tearing at the dirt with his fingers. 

“Sabina!” 

He dug until his hands were bloody, dirt forced under his ragged nails. He dug through the pain in his muscles, through the flood of tears falling down his cheeks. He just kept digging and digging, desperate for some sign she was still alive. 

“Sabina!”

He could barely move by the time he reached the room where they had put her, every fiber of his being exhausted beyond belief. Gabriel pushed through the thin wall of dirt and finally he knew why her prayers had stopped. 

He dropped down next to her, pulling her body into his lap, a small bottle, easy concealable, falling from her lap and rolling onto the dirt floor. 

Poison. 

“Sabina,” he cried, burying his face in her hair, engulfed in the oil of roses she used in her hair. “Please, please...” 

He tried to heal her, his hands ghosting over her limbs, her chest, her head. Gabriel tried to find her, reaching out with his grace, but he felt nothing. She was well and truly gone. 

He tried the last thing he knew, something he had not done since he left Heaven. He prayed. 

_Father please, I have not bothered you in centuries. Please, save her. This is all my fault._

There was no answer. 

He stayed long enough to bury her before moving on.


	3. Part 3: Scandinavia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Real love stories never have endings.” ~Richard Bach

Scandinavia wasn’t so bad once Gabriel got used to the snow. The piles of furs and wool helped him get used to the climate and the local Gods had adopted him as one of their own, after they saw him use his powers (He was no longer afraid of his brothers, they couldn’t take more than what he had already lost). 

Being Loki was much better than being Gabriel anyway. 

As Loki, he was cursed for his trickery, but there was a special brand of begrudging respect that came with it that he used like a balm to heal his wounds. He felt like a snake shedding his skin to grow, shedding Germanus and Gabriel into the dust. Loki the Trickster was just fine. 

The Norse Gods kept him busy enough at first. They were traditional and stodgy and easily offended. So he contented himself for a few centuries messing with them, cutting off Thor’s wife’s hair, killing Baldur and having fun with giants (and that stallion but he didn’t want to talk about that). He even learned to use pagan magic to cover his angelic nature. But after a while, even that lost its spark. 

He drifted back towards humanity with the caution of a swimmer who had almost drown, scared but still ready to dip his toe in. They hadn’t changed much in the centuries he’d been away. Still the same blood-thirsty apes he’d left behind in Rome. 

At least they were entertaining. Gabriel enjoyed giving them their just desserts a little too much maybe, but it was what it was.  
He got himself a nice place in Helsingborg on the coast, perfect for a single trickster who occasionally had the kids visit (although most of them wouldn’t fit in his house, but it was the thought that counted, right?).

Vikings, he learned, were especially bloodthirsty but did have a decent sense of humor and great taste in alcohol. 

Sure, it wasn’t Asgardian Ale, but it still packed a punch, he thought, as he walked home from the feast hall. He could even feel it this time, maybe, if he squinted.  
He liked to walk along the water whenever he could. Gabriel was so absorbed in watching the waves break, he didn’t notice the young man running towards him until he was on the ground. 

Gabriel’s breath caught in his throat when he looked up, and he froze. 

His soul. Sabina. 

“I’m so sorry,” the boy apologized as he helped Gabriel to his feet and dusted him off. 

He was small, smaller than Gabriel, with delicate pinched features and milky skin spattered in freckles. His hair was also light, the color of wheat in the sunlight.  
Gabriel’s heart was pounding a mile a minute as the boy’s hands touched his skin. Inside, his grace lurched forward, reaching towards the familiar pull of scarlet and gold.  
He caught the boy’s wrist as he went to pull away. “Sorry enough to give back my coin purse?”

The boy flushed and stammered as he tried to pull away, but Gabriel didn’t let go. He never wanted to let go. 

“Please,” the boy begged. “Please don’t turn me in. I can make it up to you...” he trailed off, before pressing his body against Gabriel’s, his free hand trailing down the angel’s torso. 

He could feel the boy’s warm breath on his lips and he wanted nothing more than to taste him, to remember, but Gabriel forced himself to push him away.  
“What’s your name?” he asked him, swallowing thickly as his grace churned inside of him, burning him from the inside out. 

The boy gave another tug and then gave up. He glared up at Gabriel, with eyes so blue they were almost white. 

“Maybe I will turn you in after all.” Gabriel tugged the boy forward. 

“No!” he cried. “Surtr, my name is Surtr.”

“So Surtr the Pickpocket.” Gabriel grinned, bowing slightly. “I’m Loki.” 

Surtr raised a blond eyebrow at him. “You’re lying.” 

Gabriel sighed. “Why’s that?” 

“No one would name their child after the trickster god,” Surtr said. “The Gods wouldn’t be pleased.” 

Gabriel smiled at him again. “Good boy. You’re right, they wouldn’t be.” He snapped his fingers, and his coin purse appeared in his hand. “Now why do you need this?”

Surtr’s eyes grew wide as he felt the pockets of his ratty coat. He drew in a harsh breath when he came up empty and then dropped to the ground in terrified praise. 

“Please,” he groveled, not even daring to look up. “Please, don’t kill me.” 

Gabriel swallowed thickly, his emotions warring in his heart. The joy he had felt seeing his soul again mingled with the shock of it all and the guilt of frightening him. He never thought he’d feel that kind of elation ever again, not after losing Sabina. He composed himself, slipping back into the role of Loki as easily as one slipped on a glove. 

“Oh please,” Gabriel laughed. “I wasn’t going to kill you. I just want to know why you took this.”

Surtr looked up, his lashes wet. Gabriel could taste the fear coming off of him like a wave. 

“Because I didn’t make enough money today.” 

Gabriel was almost ashamed at how long it took him to put the pieces together. The stealing, Surtr’s offer… he was a prostitute. 

“Kid, I-” 

“Don’t you feel sorry for me,” Surtr snapped, getting back to his feet. “Just let me go so I can get back to work.” 

Gabriel didn’t release his arm. Instead he held the purse out to him. “Take it.” 

Surtr’s light eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth again, but Gabriel cut him off. “It’s not out of pity. It’s … uh… a prize. I’ve never been pickpocketed before.” He let go of his arm. 

Surtr snatched the purse and ran down the road, stopping only when he was far out of Gabriel’s reach. “Thank you!” he yelled, and turned to run again, leaving Gabriel standing in the cold. 

He couldn’t help smiling. 

~~~

“Hey kid, get back here!” 

Gabriel turned to find Surtr running towards him, weaving in and out of people doing their shopping. He had been waiting for the boy to exit the brothel where he sometimes worked. He had to see Surtr again, but didn’t know how to approach him. He could have left Scandinavia all together, but he was selfish. All he could think about was the boy with Sabina’s soul. 

There were two burly, murderous looking Viking men farther down the road, pushing through people. It was clear they wanted to talk to Surtr. 

Thinking quickly, he grabbed the boy, pulling him to his side. “Just follow my lead,” he whispered. 

Surtr glowered at him, but stayed quiet. 

Gabriel started whistling, making his way over to the apple cart towards the end of the street. Nonchalantly, he leaned on the edge and snapped his fingers, tipping the entire cart and sending all its contents rolling down the street. 

Commotion exploded. The apple seller started yelling, people dropped to collect the spilled cargo, some to return them, some to steal them. The two large Vikings were blocked by the crowd, yelling curses at Gabriel and Surtr. 

“Why is it when I see you, you’re always in trouble?” Gabriel asked, strolling down a side street and away from the chaos. 

Surtr scowled at him for a moment. “Because you always get me in trouble,” he responded. 

Gabriel offered him an apple. “Now that’s not true. You do alright yourself.” 

Surtr hesitated a moment, but then took the apple. “Why are you following me?”

“I’m not following you… Alright, maybe I am,” Gabriel admitted, taking a bite out of an apple he’d pilfered from the ground. “You interest me.” 

“Well, get uninterested,” Surtr shot back with a mouth full of apple. “I have enough to worry about without you mucking it up.” 

“Well, excuse me,” Gabriel said, throwing the apple into the garbage and following Surtr through the tangle of streets. “And here I thought I was saving you from getting your pretty little face beat in. What did you do to piss them off anyway?” 

Surtr pulled a face. “I helped myself to the blond one’s purse while he was sleeping. He wasn’t going to pay me.”

Gabriel swallowed. He always got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach when Surtr’s profession came up. “Kid, you can-” 

Surtr held up his hand. “I’m not a stray dog you can rescue, Loki,” he waved him off. 

“If you say so,” Gabriel shrugged. The stubbornness reminded him of Sabina so harshly, and his heart broke just a little. He would never admit it, but he’d been following the boy, desperate for a trace that he remembered him. So far, he’d been disappointed. 

Surtr wound through the streets with practiced ease, not seeming to care that Gabriel was following him. Finally he came to a stop outside a dilapidated shack.  
“Home sweet home,” he said, ducking through the ratty blanket that seemed to serve as a door. 

Gabriel followed him in, extremely curious about how the boy lived. He was greeted by a female voice from the other room. 

A woman, past her youth, but still extremely pretty, stepped into the room, ushering a man with her. The man didn’t make eye contact with Gabriel, and slipped out under the curtain.  
“Your… wife?” Gabriel stammered at Surtr, his eyes following the woman as she followed the man outside. 

Surtr let out a laugh, the first one Gabriel had heard come from him. It could not have been any more different from Sabina’s but it still warmed him all the way through. 

“Gods no,” he snickered. “That old hag?”

“I heard that,” the woman said playfully, returning inside from the cold. “I’m Dagmar,” she offered her hand. “His room mate.”

She would have been a real beauty in her youth, but time and hard living had sapped the vitality from her skin, leaving her looking slightly worn. Her dark curly hair was frizzy and threaded with gray beneath her veil. 

Gabriel bowed low. “I’m Loki, Ma’am.”

Dagmar hummed in approval. “Finally you bring home a man with nice manners.” 

Surtr sighed dramatically, throwing his hands up. “I didn’t bring him home, he followed me!”

“Technically, I was going the same way,” Gabriel smirked, intensely proud of himself. “After I daringly saved you from two large Vikings.”

“You overturned the apple cart!”

“Same thing,” Gabriel responded, waggling his eyebrows at Surtr. Dagmar burst into hysterical laughter. 

“Stop!” Surtr pleaded. “You’re only going to encourage him!” 

“Too late,” Gabriel replied smugly. 

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” Dagmar asked. 

“I’d love to,” Gabriel laughed, beaming at the young man. 

Surtr groaned loudly. “What did I do to deserve this?” 

Dinner was a simple affair, or it would have been if Gabriel had let it be. After he explained who he was and a simple demonstration of his power (changing the food and wine into something actually edible), Gabriel finally felt comfortable asking about Dagmar’s profession. 

“So ehh, how does one go about getting into your… line of work?”

Surtr looked absolutely mortified and opened his mouth, but Dagmar shushed him. 

“Not by choice, I assure you,” she replied, still smiling. “My husband… he didn’t treat me well, so I left with my daughter. After a while, the money ran out. I did what I had to do. But I wouldn’t have made it without Surtr. He saved me.” 

Gabriel felt like a bastard for even asking. 

“What about you?” Surtr jumped in, his blue eyes roving over Gabriel. “What’s your story?” 

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “You know my story, all my stories. Cutting off Sif’s hair, my fling with the giantess, that’s a hell of a-” 

“No,” Surtr said. “Not that. You are Loki and you aren’t… You’re something more. I know you’re something more… I can feel it.”

Gabriel froze, locking eyes with Surtr, searching them. Even at this distance, he could feel his soul reaching out to him, calling to him. Was it possible he remembered? Did Gabriel even want him to? 

They stood like that for a moment, still and quiet before Dagmar coughed. 

“I think I’ll be going to bed now. Loki, it was nice meeting you,” she said before heading to her bedroom. 

Surtr didn’t break eye contact with him. 

“I better be going too,” Gabriel mumbled, beginning to gather his coat. 

“No,” Surtr said suddenly, “Not until you tell me who you are!”

“It’s better if you don’t know,” Gabriel shot back, shrugging into his furs. Surtr followed him out into the cold. 

“Why have you been following me?” he shouted, grabbing Gabriel’s arm. “Why do you care what happens to me? Why do I feel like I know you? Why do I ache for you?”  
Gabriel could have easily pulled out of Surtr’s grip at any time but he didn’t. 

“WHY? Answer me!” Surtr begged, pulling Gabriel against him, his fingers on his wrist sending Gabriel’s grace singing. 

He couldn’t tell him. The boy would never believe him. Why should he? It wouldn’t be any less painful if he knew the truth of what Gabriel had lost, of what he was still losing just being near him. But then again, what was the harm if he did?

“What if I told you that souls don’t go to Valhalla after they die?” Gabriel asked. “That instead they’re reborn in different bodies? Would you believe me?” 

“I didn’t believe in Gods until I met you,” Surtr mumbled, releasing Gabriel’s wrist. He was studying him now, as if trying to remember. 

“You knew me,” Gabriel began. “In another life, in Rome.” He couldn’t stop the tears from forming in his eyes. “We were in love and… and… and you died and I couldn't save you…”

“They buried me.” 

Gabriel tried to swallow the lump in his throat. He just nodded. 

“They buried me alive,” Surtr sneered at him, fury contorting his face. “They buried me, and you didn’t come.” 

He rained blows down on Gabriel’s head. The former angel didn't make any move to stop him, taking each punch that the boy threw. Finally Surtr pushed him away, cheeks wet with hot tears. “You let me die!” 

“I know,” was all Gabriel said, was all he could say. It was true. She died because of him. “I’m sorry.” 

“You’re sorry?!” Surtr cried, rubbing at his tears with his shirt sleeves. 

On a whim, Gabriel pulled him closer, pinning Surtr’s arms to his sides and kissing his face. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t do anything to stop it. By the Gods, I tried.” 

Surtr came alive in his arms, kissing Gabriel back so roughly, the angel tasted blood. There was no gentleness or finesse in his kisses, just raw emotion. 

Gabriel came back at him with equal fervor, every pent up emotion pouring out of him all at once. He’d waited hundreds of years to feel like this again, didn’t think he would ever be able to. He let Surtr press him against the wall of his house, desperate for each kiss, for each pull of his grace. 

Surtr hissed as Gabriel rucked up his shirt, shivering at the chill of the wind. “Inside!” he whispered, breaking the kiss long enough to pull Gabriel back through the curtain. The fire was still going strong inside as they made their way across the room to Surtr’s bedroll, shedding clothing as they went. By the time they landed on straw and fur, Gabriel was only in his undershirt, Surtr stark naked. 

He was glorious to behold, pale skin muted in the dying firelight. The freckles that graced his cheek bones dotted his shoulders, chest and thighs. The hair growing on his thin chest was so white it looked like spider’s silk, trailing down his belly to his crotch. 

His hands were everywhere, rough and demanding as he pulled the last barrier between them over Gabriel’s head. Surtr came down on him quickly, his teeth clacking against Gabriel’s in his haste. He’d almost forgotten the boy did this for a living, he was so clumsy.

He let Surtr take the reins, allowing himself to be pushed down and straddled under his weight. Gabriel groaned as Surtr palmed him, tugging his cock roughly. The boy wasted no time snaking down Gabriel’s body, lingering to suck on his pulse point, pressing open mouthed kisses into his collar bone. 

He nibbled down his sternum, licking over the sparse trail of hair on his belly until finally Surtr sucked Gabriel's cock into his mouth and Gabriel practically wept with relief. 

There were no words in his extensive vocabulary or any language of men or angels that could describe the electricity that was shooting through him at that moment. Centuries of Iove and sorrow poured from his grace, across the bond, making it harder and harder to hold himself together. 

Surtr hummed around him, taking Gabriel as deep as he could go before he pulled off with a pop and a smirk. He dug beneath his mattress before unearthing a battered tin of salve. 

Gabriel propped himself up on his elbows, enjoying the view below him. Surtr looked absolutely debauched, lips red and shiny with spit, hair in disarray, pupils blown so wide he could barely see the blue. 

Gabriel wanted to eat him, he wanted to drink him, to hold him forever in this moment just as it was. 

He watched as Surtr began preparing himself, lewdly pushing two fingers rapidly in and out of his hole, spreading them as he went. He moaned loudly as he added a third and Gabriel couldn’t help but grin. 

Surtr had a feral look in his eye as he climbed forward, straddling Gabriel’s lap again, angling his hips over Gabriel’s dripping cock. He reached down with a slick hand and stroked Gabriel from root to tip, covering him in salve. Gabriel shivered under his touch, arching up, craving more friction. The boy dropped slowly, hissing as he impaled himself on the head of Gabriel’s cock. 

Gabriel held his breath as the boy pressed down on him, savoring the slick heat, trying not to think of who else he’d made feel like this. 

It wasn’t until he was fully seated inside him that Gabriel realized he was shaking. Surtr was lightly trembling, his head thrown back as he pulled back. 

Gabriel sat up, despite his protests. “Shhh,” he whispered, peppering Surtr’s face with gentle kisses. “It’s alright. What’s wrong?” 

He whined when Gabriel stopped moving. “Please move,” he breathed. “I want… I need… it’s just so intense…”

Gabriel rocked upwards gently, holding Surtr against him. He could feel it too, the almost unbearable pressure between them, as soul and grace remembered the history between them. 

Surtr’s face was cradled in between Gabriel’s shoulder and neck, teeth scraping roughly against his skin. The smallest movement on his hips caused a moan to rip from Surtr’s throat as he struggled with the intensity of it. 

“Shh... shh... shhh,” Gabriel soothed, dipping his head to bring Surtr’s face up to where he could see it. He sent out a wave of calm over his grace. “Just kiss me, it’ll be fine. I promise.” 

He rocked forward again, the fire in his groin slowly kindling and licking upwards. Surtr’s lips met his again, the rawness of their first interaction replaced by a begrudging tenderness. Gabriel kissed him fully, his tongue darting out to tease his lower lip. Surtr responded in kind, a small whimper escaping from him as he bounced in Gabriel's lap. The former angel could feel the pleasure building across the bond, in his grace as well as the soul he had once held on his wheel. 

He reached out with his grace, emanating pleasure and want and yes, angling his hips up with each pulse of emotion. He knew it was sort of cheating, but he couldn't bring himself to care. 

Surtr ground back against him, making Gabriel see stars behind his eyelids as they tread closer and closer to completion. The power vibrated between them, feeding on and fueling their arousal. They rocked together, joined in both body and soul. 

It only took one stroke before Surtr was coming into Gabriel’s hand between them and only one clench before Gabriel followed, whispering affections in his ear. 

Breathing raggedly, Surtr eased off him and flopped down on the furs beside him. Gabriel snapped to clean them and then joined him. 

*****  
Some time later, Gabriel looked over Surtr’s form, languid by their lovemaking. 

“Move in with me,” he said quietly, his hand ghosting over Surtr’s spine. 

He looked at Gabriel with his blue eyes gleaming. “But... Dagmar…”

“She can come too,” Gabriel promised at once. “Both of you. I have more than enough for the both of you.” 

Surtr scrutinized him for a moment before speaking. “I’m not her. You know, the girl you used to love.” 

“I know.” 

“I’ll never be her… ever,” he added, turning his head to look at Gabriel, a challenging look in his eyes. 

“I know,” Gabriel repeated louder. 

“I’m a prostitute, I sleep with men for money, I-”

Gabriel cut him off with a kiss. “I know,” he whispered against his lips. “I don’t care. I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, pulling Surtr flush against him again. 

He didn’t know how soon that would be a lie.

~~~~  
Norse Gods were clingy, Gabriel decided as he rode back home from Asgard. He’d outsmarted dwarves once and all of a sudden, they thought he was the expert of dwarves. Every time they had a problem with the damned bearded bastards, he had to go to Asgard for a couple days to sort it out. 

He’d be lying if he’d say he wasn’t glad to be on his way home. He dreamed of his bed and Surtr’s laugh, and Dagmar’s cooking. It was almost like having his family back.  
The house was eerily quiet as he walked it. It was normally full of noise, the sounds of living, talking and laughter, but now there was nothing, until he heard it: sobbing. 

His stomach dropped, and he ran. 

Dagmar was bent over the table, her head on Surtr’s shoulder, her whole body wracked with sobs. 

_No. No. No._ His heart pounded out its denial. It already knew what his head had yet to realize. 

Surtr is too still. 

_No. Please._

He could smell the blood from the raw wound on his neck. 

_No. Nonononono!_

Gabriel kissed him, his lips warm and trembling against Surtr’s cold ones. He’d been dead two days. 

There was a fight in town, Dagmar explained. Surtr had been surprised by two robbers. They tried to take his medal, the one Gabriel gave him the night they moved into his house. He wouldn’t let them take it. They opened his throat and took it anyway. 

Gabriel shook. He kissed Surtr’s eyelids, willing him to wake. He used his pagan magic to try and start his heart. He broke the seals he put in place to disguise his heavenly origin, tearing into his human flesh to pick open the stitches. 

He hadn’t heard Surtr’s cries for help. He hadn’t heard anything. Gabriel dug deeper into his skin, yanking each thread of pagan magic from his grace as if trying to pull himself apart from the inside out. 

Gabriel dabbed Surtr’s face with his vessel’s blood, he screamed over the angelic wavelength words that didn’t translate into human tongues.  
In the end, curses got him the same thing as prayers did in Rome. 

Nothing.


	4. Part 4: India

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Love never claims, it ever gives"~Mahatma Gandhi

India was just the balm he needed after what had happened in Scandinavia. It was crowded and gritty and would chew you up and spit you out if given the chance. There were endless ways to amuse himself and more reckless mortals to toy with. In other words, it was perfect.

Kali was a storm with skin, a tornado of rage and death barely contained in human form. She ruled her pantheon with an iron first, and for the first century, Gabriel thought it was hot.

He couldn’t complain much. Kali kept him in the cushy life, with as many sweets and wine as he could consume and an endless supply of idiots to torment. There were servants and cooks to see to his every need, want, or whim.

The chick was all hands and had a thing for Norse bad boys, but she also had a stalker of an ex-husband with a jealous streak as long as the Ganges and twice as wide, who loved to make Gabriel sweat.

Not that Shiva could do a lot to him, but Gabriel wasn’t willing to risk his cover for one fire-tempered god who still had the hots for his ex. It shouldn't be any of his business, but as usual, Kali made it his business.

They were lounging in her rooms when she brought it up, her dark skin still damp with sweat from their lovemaking.

“He won’t leave it alone,” she pouted. “He claims he’s not getting the share of the offerings he was promised. The Obeisance, the money. He wants more.”

Well, Gabriel wanted to roll over and sleep but it looked like that wasn’t happening anytime soon. He grumbled, pulling a silken sheet up over his naked shoulders, and faced her.

“I don’t really care what he wants,” he informed her. “He’s your problem. You were the one who married him, not me.”

A wrinkle formed between Kali’s dark eyes, indicating to him that that was not the answer she was looking for from him. He didn’t want to deal with the fallout, so he kept talking.

“Buuuuut, since it means so much to you, why not give him a sacrifice?”

Her face released instantly and Gabriel patted himself on the back for being so quick thinking after his orgasm. Refractory period, his ass!

“I suppose we could,” she purred, trailing her slender fingers up his arm. “That would shut him up for a while.”

“Why not one of the servants? Line them up and let him pick whoever he wants?” Gabriel suggested, pulling Kali’s naked body closer to his.

He didn’t care about humans, he told himself, Lucifer had been right about them after all. They were murderous little beasts. He thought of Sabina and Surtr, and how they’d been taken from him. There were nights he still woke up in a cold sweat, drowning in dreams of blood and dirt. Never again.

Kali’s answer was nonverbal and drove all rational thought from his head.

He didn’t think of it again.

~~~~

Gabriel hated when Shiva decided to show his face. The entire palace, including Kali, was in an uproar for a week preceding the visit of their former master, and Gabriel felt like he couldn’t breathe. Whenever he could, he retreated to the lush garden that surrounded the grounds, dripping with plants that even he had never seen before.

He had always enjoyed those quietest of his Father’s creations, they were simple in their purpose and never harmed anything they weren't supposed to. Gabriel stepped off the path and lost himself in the greenery until he finally came to a huge, old baobab tree. It was larger than almost any tree he’d seen in India and he couldn’t resist the urge to climb it.

He was at the highest branch when he stopped and sat, surveying the bustle of the palace from a safe distance. If he hadn't known what lay inside of it, it would have taken his breath away. But he knew all the backbiting and treachery that took place within its walls.

“What am I doing here?” Gabriel asked himself out loud, his hands over his face. He’d fallen so far since he’d left Heaven. He didn’t love Kali, she was just a pleasant way to spend the time, one that didn’t rip his heart out. He knew she fancied herself in love with him, but it was only a matter of time before she went back to Shiva. Gabriel had been on Earth since humans had invented fire, and he had nothing to show for it. He was useless; he hadn't been able even to save his own soulmate.

Gabriel was so lost in his own thoughts it took him a moment to notice another person climbing the tree. He didn’t have to look at him to know who he was, the outward pull of his grace giving him the answer he dreaded. His heart sped up as he gazed upon the person climbing from branch to branch underneath him.

His soul.

Again.

Was his father determined to punish him for eternity? Dangling the soul in front of him like a carrot in front of a horse?

The young man looked to be taller than Gabriel and of strong build but still on the skinny side. He had an open, plain face, with crooked teeth and skin the color of mahogany. His hair was ink black and tumbled down his neck in a spray of unruly curls.

Gabriel snapped out of the tree, using his powers for the first time since coming to India, before the other man saw him. He was well and truly fucked.

He paced his rooms when he reappeared there, weighing his options. He couldn’t breathe, his head and heart pounding in tandem as he tried to figure out what to do. He couldn’t just leave, it would be perceived as a slight by Kali, and she was not someone he would have as his enemy. But he couldn’t stay… not again. He fought the feelings that threatened to overwhelm him, the sadness and pain as he remembered his lover’s past agonizing deaths.

All he could do was wait.

He holed up in his room as much as he could, seeing to his own needs as much as he was able. He refused all servant help and waited for the fallout of his powers, his brothers and sisters haunting his every step.

But no one came. It would seem they had forgotten about him, and with all his other problems hanging over him, for once he was grateful.

Kali didn’t notice that he was acting strange, preoccupied as she was with her ex-husband’s imminent arrival. They still had dinner together and fucked, but it had lost all its urgency and passion now that Gabriel knew how close his soul was. It just felt wrong.

In the secret quiet of his rooms, he made plans for his departure, and back-up plans in case those plans didn’t work out. He planned a banquet in Shiva’s honor and arranged to have a sacrifice. 

He finally decided that getting Kali and Shiva back together would be in his best interests, because if Kali tired of him, she couldn’t claim slight when he left.

It would be his only shot to leave unscathed. 

His soul could finally live a full life, not a life cut short by his intervention.

 

The day Shiva came, Gabriel finally felt like he could breathe again. This would all be over soon and he would be in the wind and as far away from India as he could manage.

Had Gabriel not been an angel who had battled baddies for centuries, Kali’s ex would have terrified him. He was large and intimidating, with an eye in the middle of his forehead in addition to his normal two and a large snake around his neck. He clutched a trishula in his hand, as if he was ready to throw it at any second. And he only had eyes for Kali.

The servants, who had always treated Gabriel with a begrudging aloofness, were falling all over themselves to help their former master with his things.

Shiva approached them with a swagger and a glint in his eye, taking Kali’s hand in his.

“I didn’t think it was possible,” he smirked. “But you’ve gotten even more radiant.”

She didn’t smile, but Gabriel could tell from how her eyes softened that she was drinking in his praises.

Gabriel felt nothing.

Shiva finally finished his flirting and turned to him. “Hello, Loki,” he said, his lip curling slightly.

Gabriel shook his hand, returning the feral smile. “Good to see you, Shiva.”

“I won’t overstay my welcome, so let’s cut to the chase. Shall we?”

Kali smiled and led the way, Shiva and his entourage trailing behind her. Gabriel tailed the pack, hands clenched behind his back. He tried not to look smug, but his plan was working. Now all he had to do was lock it up.

They walked through the gleaming wooden hallways, towards the banquet hall.

Gabriel savored Kali’s gasp of surprise as she saw what lay ahead. She turned back to him, her eyes wide.

“You did this?”

Before them was a sumptuous banquet, food laid out on every available surface, casks of mead and wine lining the walls.

“I figured maybe Lord Shiva and his friends would be tired from their trip and may like something to eat before they chose their lamb,” Gabriel shrugged, earning a grin from Kali.

Shiva eyed him suspiciously. “That was… thoughtful of you, Loki,” he hesitated. “Thank… you.”

“Well, come on,” he urged the guests. “Before it gets cold.”

Mouths watering, they didn’t need to be asked a second time.

 

Gabriel watched them over the rim of his glass. He had given up his seat at Kali’s right hand for their guest of honor. Shiva had given him another sideways glance, but Kali looked delighted. She settled in comfortably, putting back mead like it was going out of style. She wouldn’t know what happened until she was too drunk to care. Asgardian mead was tricky that way. All he had to do now was make himself scarce.

Gabriel slipped away as soon as he was sure he wouldn’t be noticed. He locked the door of his chambers and made his way to the darkened garden.

He watched through the window for a while, staring at the smiling flushed faces in a world he didn’t belong to, had never belonged to. In that moment, he ached for his family, for Castiel and Lucifer, for Michael, for the warmth and happiness before the humans had even taken their first real breath of air. In that moment, he understood Lucifer’s hatred of their Father, his feeling replaced. Why hadn't they been enough?

When it became too much to watch, Gabriel fled to the tree, hiding away until the party had petered out and the guests were taking their leave to sleep off their drunkenness. He stole through the corridors like a thief, till he was safely tucked behind the quiet doors of his rooms.

For the first time since he’d resided there, Kali didn’t visit his bed.

Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief.

It was far too soon.

~~~

He awoke to a flurry of activity as the breakfast preparations were made for Shiva’s large party. He could hear the servants talking outside his door in anxious tones as they wonder who would be picked as a sacrifice. It would seem that many of them would view it as honor to be chosen to serve their master in this way. Gabriel snorted at that as he dressed.

Some of Shiva’s party had already eaten by the time he made his way into the hall, grumbling over their half-eaten plates, but Shiva and Kali were not among them. There were covered chuckles and raised eyebrows as he entered, their mocking eyes following him as he moved to fill his plate.

Gabriel straightened his spine and squared his shoulders and ignored them. He would be laughing last when this was all over, free and clear, with his heart intact.

He had finished his breakfast by the time Kali deigned to enter her own hall, impeccably dressed in a high collar, to hide the love bites on her neck. It didn’t matter, Gabriel told himself, as she leaned over and kissed him, it was all part of his plan. His pride pricked more than his heart.

Shiva followed closely behind her, ebullient and loud. He gave Gabriel a sly grin as he slipped into a chair at Kali’s other side.

“I trust my lord slept well?” Gabriel couldn’t help himself.

“Better than normal,” Shiva conceded, his eyes dancing merrily. “Must be the company.”

The former angel pretended he didn’t feel Kali kick her ex-husband under the table.

Chastened, Shiva chattered with his friends, until not even crumbs remained on his plate, and then he called for the servants.

“Bring them out!”

Before long, a line of servants, men and women were brought out in a line, freshly scrubbed and dressed in ill-fitting clothing. Most of them looked uncomfortable, itching and rubbing at the offending cloth.

Gabriel surveyed them one by one, until he stopped on one.

The man’s mouth had fallen open slightly as he and Gabriel locked eyes, the scarlet and gold of his soul swirling in his pupils. Gabriel’s grace pulled forward towards him, stretching painfully.

Swallowing quickly, he offered a silent prayer. ‘Not him, he thought. ‘Please not him.’

“That one, the girl.”

Gabriel breathed a small sigh of relief. The young woman was pulled forward, her dark hair falling into her plain, pock-marked face. She was terrified, crying, her breath rapid and uneven.

The boy, his boy, took a step forward.

“My lord.”

No.

“I will go in her stead,” his voice, dark and rich like molasses, didn’t tremble.

Shiva regarded him for a moment. “What’s your name, boy?”

“Sami, my lord.”

“Dear to me, how… apt,” he drawled, looking at Gabriel. “What is this girl to you, Sami?”

“No one, my lord, but she has a young son, and her husband is dead.”

Gabriel wanted to call out, to argue, but he knew it would of no use. They would cut him down where he stood. Even if they couldn't hurt him, making a convincing show of fighting and dying wouldn’t buy the boy any time. He would die regardless.

Shiva only grinned and then looked directly at Gabriel.

“Ah… how selfless.” He turned from the young man to the angel, looking every inch the god of destruction he was. “Thank you, Loki, I understand this was your suggestion.”

Gabriel bit his tongue, tasting his vessel’s blood. He just nodded, forcing his lips into a tight smile, hands clenched in his the folds of his shirt.

Despite Sami’s bravado, Gabriel could taste the boy’s fear in the air, hear his staccatoed prayers… to be born into a higher caste… for his family… his little sister...

He blocked them out. He couldn’t listen… it was all his fault… his doing. Unlike the others, he had directly killed Sami for his own selfish reasons.

Shiva begged his leave, his eyes burning into Gabriel’s form as he led Sami away, stroking his arm slowly, almost tenderly. 

There was a flurry of activity around him, chanting and music as the servants hurried to leave the hall and watch the spectacle. 

The girl whom Sami had saved, collapsed to the floor, openly weeping and thanking Shiva for her mercy in ragged, wet gasps. 

Gabriel walked out, as gracefully as he could, ignoring Kali's gaze as he hurried to his room.

He was barely through the door when he felt a sharp tug on his grace and then a hard snap, shaking him to the very core, the connection between them severing as Sami’s soul was severed from his body.

Sami's life was over.

Gabriel vomited.


	5. Part 5: Arsuf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul." ~ Judy Garland

Gabriel had never had time for kings. Most of them were stuffy and boring, overly pretentious or just plain stupid. This one was none of those things, and that was what intrigued Gabriel the most. 

Richard, called the Lionheart, was everything a king should be. He was tall and russet-haired, fearless and booming with a laugh that filled up a room. Gabriel would have been more than half in love with him if his Crusades hadn’t caused so many deaths. 

Gabriel had no taste for fighting. Even beating back the demons and the Darkness, he had never enjoyed it like Michael or Lucifer. He had no idea why he went on the campaign with Richard, other than the fact he had been asked to come, as an advisor. 

He hadn’t meant to get roped into the Crusades, he had only meant to make an amusing stop on his transcontinental tour of the world. He’d made one lousy pitstop in Dartmouth a year ago, and now here he was, riding alongside a king and his army. 

He had made it very clear to the King that he wouldn’t fight, that he’d seen enough fighting, but Richard had laughed and given him a sword anyway. 

It was a handsome thing, inlaid with precious stones, rubies he guessed, along the hilt. Even though Gabriel insisted it would only be an ornament, the blade was sharp and honed, like a real knight would have. It was a pleasant weight against him as he rode, just behind the king and higher ranking nobility. 

It was early morning and the sun had barely risen when they started riding, part of Richard’s plan to avoid the hottest part of the day. They stopped often and always near water — Richard had learned his lesson about heat stroke after the Battle of Hattin. It was more tedious this way, but more soldiers lived to fight. 

New recruits showed up every day, but Gabriel paid them no mind. They were just faces to him, bodies to fill the ranks and pay for each step they gained with their blood. There was no point in getting to know them. Stoic and faithful as they were, they weren't even fun to prank.

They marched towards Jaffa, the fervor growing with each day, excitement swelling as the battle loomed larger on the horizon. The fleet of ships Richard had left followed them down the coast, carrying their supplies and the wounded soldiers.

Even though they were only marching, the King, ever-watchful of the danger of guerrilla attacks, kept them in tight formation, a hundred knights in each of twelve mounted regiments. The infantry soldiers, the hot August sun glinting off their heavy armor, protected them on the landward flank. The infantry had extra protection in the form of skilled bowmen. On the side facing the water was where their baggage rode, along with the resting infantry. It was another tactic Richard had learned to keep his troops fresh and healthy.

“What about the archers, Sire?” Gabriel was asking one morning. He’d be lying if he wasn’t a bit worried. They had been hitting pockets of resistance more frequently as they got closer to the Turkish army. They’d lost a few men, but their ranks were swelling by the day, flooded with English blood, nobility and common folk alike. 

Richard laughed, waving him off. “No match for English crossbows. Where are you from again, Sir George?” 

Gabriel huffed. No matter how many times he reiterated the phony story, Richard never remembered, and even Gabriel was having trouble remembering what he’d told him. “Lyons, Sire.” 

“Poncy cheese-eaters are no match for the English either!” he laughed, as one of his guard brought two men forward. 

Richard insisted on meeting every man that came to fight for his cause, even if it was only for a few minutes. Gabriel was conversing with the King during their afternoon rest when two of their new men approached them. Gabriel’s hand went straight to his sword and he gripped it tightly before he felt the pull on his Grace. 

He looked up to see the familiar scarlet-gold swirl behind the shorter man’s eyes, his heart torn between beating wildly and dropping into the pit of his stomach. And the taller man… He was not prepared to see Dagmar’s soul looking back at him too. 

The two men were of average height, the body housing Sabina and Surtr’s soul shorter than the other man by two inches. Gabriel placed their ages at around nineteen. They had similar features, finely cut and smattered with a light dusting of freckles. They were neither overly attractive nor ugly, just pleasingly regular. If it wasn’t for his soul, Gabriel never could have picked the man’s face out in a crowd. 

They both dropped to one knee, waiting to rise until Richard acknowledged them both. They rose swiftly, faces grave. 

“You may speak freely, my good men. Pray tell, who are you,” Richard said, a smile playing on his features. He was not one to stand on ceremony with his men, his jovial nature catching most off their guard. He had told Gabriel he did it because he enjoyed their reaction. Gabriel would make a trickster of the King yet. 

The men exchanged glances and Surtr/Sabina spoke. “My name is Simon Wright, milord,” he began. “And this is David, my kinsman. We wish to join your holy mission.” 

Richard regarded them with amusement, surveying the battered nature of their armour and the dull shine of their swords. He nodded to Gabriel, an eyebrow raised. “What do you think, Sir George? Do these men look fit for our Crusade? Your unusual silence concerning this matter makes me worry.”

Gabriel let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. If it were really up to him, he would send them both packing. He had done enough damage to them in their past lives. But the King’s question was rhetorical. Gabriel couldn’t save them anymore in this life than in the past. 

He returned the King’s glance levelly, smiling even though he felt dread finding a familiar foothold in his gut. “They seem to be steady souls, your majesty. We may make soldiers of them yet.” 

Richard looked smug as he sent the men on their way to see one of his commanders. He said something and then laughed, slapping Gabriel heartily on the back, but Gabriel didn’t hear him through the feel of his heart cracking along its old fault lines. 

It sounded like glass, the crash of swords, and ceremonial music, and smelled like blood and charcoal. 

It felt like dying. 

But Gabriel had never been afraid to die. 

~~~~~

It wasn’t long before Simon and David were drawn into the circle of Richard’s favorites, gambling and drinking in their idle hours, which were few and far in between as they neared the Turkish King’s army. 

Gabriel tried to stay away as much as he could, but even without Richard noticing his absence, he couldn’t bring himself to just leave. It just hurt too much to even think of, being away from him when he knew who he was. It wasn’t as if knowing him mattered. Sami had proved that trying to stay away was a lost cause. At least here, he could protect him. 

But he found it hurt just as much to stay, to watch him and keep himself from holding him. Gabriel caught himself staring at Simon, as if willing him to display some similar habit to his old lovers. He strained himself to hear a note of Surtr in Simon’s voice, a flash of Sabina’s brilliance written across a face so utterly wrong Gabriel thought he would scream at the wrongness of it all. But Simon’s mannerisms were all their own, deliberate and solid, much like the man himself. 

Even so, Gabriel couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to him with his grace, desperate for some recognition, for anything really, that proved Surtr, Sami and Sabina had existed, but again and again he was disappointed. Simon never displayed more than a passing interest in Gabriel, but there were some times when the former angel caught him staring, as if trying to bore into him with his eyes. 

But Gabriel loved him just the same. Simon was kind and clever, protective of his brothers at arms and brave to a fault. They had been in only a few skirmishes but Simon had showed a cool logic that stunned even Gabriel; strength and sinew with a core of steel to back it up. He couldn't help loving him.

But over time, he noticed how Simon's eyes lingered on the King, pausing ever so slightly and then softening, and Gabriel's heart lurched. Finally, he thought bitterly, he saw Sabina, Surtr. She used to look at him that way, after he kissed her, after they made love, the way Surtr watched him when he thought he had fallen asleep. Simon was in love with Richard. 

Gabriel had long known of Richard's tastes, but he was completely blindsided by Simon's. He hadn't expected this and he ached with that knowledge, the taste of jealousy and bile rising in his throat as he noted the looks between them. He knew what happened to Richard’s lovers — they got fucked and dumped, because Richard’s only love was the battlefield, and no human could ever compare. 

But Gabriel kept on trying, trying to draw Simon to him by sheer force of will. But the man would not budge, his interest in Gabriel only platonic, the tide of his love steadily flowing to the man he had pledged his allegiance to. 

It broke him a little every day, and every night, when he heard Simon creep out of his tent and sneak into Richard’s; the noises that reminded him of Surtr as he rode Gabriel hard in the cold Scandinavian winter. It hurt to see the evidence the next day in the form of love bites only viewed when they bathed in the river. He couldn’t help himself, he still felt drawn to Simon, forced to watch even as he loved another. 

This was his punishment for Sami, he finally realized, his penance for killing him, for thinking of himself first. It was only fitting that the one he yearned for was drawn to someone else, and he had to watch them fall in love, tasting the bitterness of rejection like ashes in his mouth. The knowledge that Richard would undoubtedly break Simon’s heart and Gabriel could do nothing to stop it, only made his punishment clearer to him. It was no more than he deserved.

Day after day, into late August, he stared as they marched around the shoulder of Mount Carmel, hugging the coast. He prayed for Simon’s safe return from each skirmish, knowing he was talking to nobody but himself. His Father was long gone, and Michael was too busy running Heaven to listen to his little brother. Gabriel looked for innocuous reasons to touch him after battle, checking to make sure he was okay. 

He watched Simon when they decided to march through the trees of Arsuf, against his advice. The king had ignored him, despite the danger the wood offered. Gabriel could tell from the reluctant look that passed over Simon’s face that he didn’t agree with his lover. Later, instead of moaning, he heard hushed angry words and then the slap of tent flaps being pushed aside. 

Against his better judgment, he got up from his bedroll and peaked outside. Simon, red-faced and puffy-eyed, was scrubbing his tunic angrily on the beach. 

“Simon?”

The man's head came up and he looked frantically behind him. Gabriel stepped out of his tent and tried not to be annoyed by the fallen look when Simon realized it was only him. 

“Oh, Sir George… I thought you were-” 

“I know who you thought I was,” Gabriel snapped. “You tried to argue with him, didn’t you? About the forest?”

Simon looked taken aback by Gabriel’s tone. “Yes. Those trees provide more cover for an ambush. How can he not see that?”

Gabriel walked until he was standing next to him. “He does see it. He just doesn’t care.” 

Simon’s mouth gaped open, giving him the look of a fish gasping for air. “But the men- They’ll die...” 

Gabriel slowly smiled at him, an almost perverse pleasure growing in his gut at the thought of shaking Simon’s faith in the King. “He doesn’t care,” he repeated carefully, cruelly in his precision. “They are simply bodies to fill his army, just like you are just a body to fill his bed.” 

Warmth bloomed in his chest when the look inscribed on the knight’s features told him he had hit home. 

“You’re- you’re lying,” Simon hissed, scrambling to his feet and leaving his tunic in the sand. “He loves me!”

“Aye, he does,” Gabriel taunted, hands clenched at his sides. He couldn’t stop the venom pouring from his lips. “Just like all the others, myself included.” 

The last part wasn’t true. He had never been Richard’s lover, but he knew it would only add to Simon’s fury. 

Simon’s eyes narrowed, and Gabriel thought for a moment he might hit him, but he didn’t. He watched Simon’s jaw clench and his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. 

“I see how you watch me, you imp,” Simon spat back at him, his face and chest heaving with rage “You undress me with your eyes, with your thoughts. My heart belongs to Richard alone!” He faltered for a moment, a confused look crossing his face. He made a grab for his chest, where his heart would be. “D-do- Do not cross my path again, or you will meet the end of my sword,” he swore. 

Simon angrily pushed past him and into the camp, still clutching his chest, and Gabriel smugly noted that he went to his own tent and not Richard’s. 

Gabriel knew what had happened, the crash of agony that had the knight gripping his chest. 

The guilt didn’t hit him full force until he returned to his own tent, alone beneath his blankets. He knew he’d done the right thing by telling him, but the way he’d gone about it, Simon’s words after, the cold look in the other man’s eyes, made him regret it. 

Gabriel couldn’t feel the cold, but at the same time he couldn’t stop shivering. 

~~~

Simon kept his distance as they trekked into the woods, and Gabriel let him. Despite the fact that it hurt, white hot pain lancing through his Grace with every touch, he had hope. Maybe Simon loving another would break the pattern. Maybe he would live, with Richard loving him instead of Gabriel. Maybe…

Simon had been right, as Gabriel had known he would be, about the forest. It was littered with pockets of Turkish warriors, and they lost many good men. Simon’s mouth set in a hard line every time the King’s advisors told him of the casualties, but he never said another word about it, and at night Gabriel still heard their lovemaking through the fabric walls of his tent. It still ached, but the hope kept him standing, kept him sane. 

One morning in the beginning of September, as they were about to leave camp in the early morning hours, one of their scouts discovered Saladin had scouts of his own, scattered in all directions, hinting at the possibility that the whole of the Turkish army lay in wait for them in the dense thicket of the trees. 

Richard met with his advisors at once, realigned his army to best suit the terrain. The front and rear of his troops were the more experienced and heavily armed military including Turcopole cavalry, who fought in a similar style to Saladin’s archers. It was decided between them that the van of the army would consist of the Knights Templar, a fearsome bunch of specially trained knights, under the direction of Robert de Sable, who Gabriel liked but thought a bit dour. Richard’s Bretons and Angevins would be followed by the King of Jerusalem, Guy of Lusignan, and his Poitevins. As always, the English and the Normans brought up the rear, with the great mounted standard in their charge. 

The King and his councilors argued in detail about each regiment and how they were laid out. Gabriel threw his two cents in once in awhile, but Simon, who was there in no more than a support capacity, stayed silent. The next seven corps were to be made up of Frenchmen, the barons of Outremer and the smaller groups of crusaders who had joined up from other lands. The rear was composed of the Knights Hospitaller, with Fra’ Garnier de Nablus riding at its head. He was a seasoned warrior at this point, and although Gabriel didn’t trust him, even he would admit there was no one better. There would also be a small group, comprised of knights hand-picked by Richard and Hugh of Burgundy, and led by Henry II of Champagne that were assigned scouting duties and making sure their troops were all in order. 

It wasn’t until they were all clear of their campsite when the Saracens attacked. 

It was complete and utter pandemonium, Saladin’s army a bustling mass of light and sound, crashing gongs and screaming war cries. Gabriel kept an eye on Simon, his glance never breaking even as the arrows and javelins started flying into their ranks. Richard ordered his men not to attack and to keep marching. Gabriel watched Simon’s face grow still and stubborn, but he didn’t say a word, just kept going.

When the projectiles didn’t work, Saladin’s army changed tactics. They switched their fire to the rear of the corps, attacking the Hospitallers directly. 

Gabriel felt claustrophobic as the rear pressed back, walking backwards so their eyes and shields were always on their enemies. His horse was spooked and he backed up, trying to get away from the flying objects. The men around him groaned as they were crushed together around him. Gabriel could hear the shouts of dying men behind him as Saladin himself began leading the charges. 

Richard’s army marched onward, letting the dead men stay where they fell. Gabriel was seething as he fought his way through the ranks towards Richard. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” he shouted. “Your Highness. Your men are dying for you, and you aren't defending them?!”

A hard look came over Richard’s face. “You forget your place, George,” he threatened. “I can lower you just as I have raised you. I grow tired of your dissent. I am the king, I will do as I wish.” 

Gabriel bit his lip so hard he drew blood. His mouth filled with the familiar tangy taste as he struggled to keep quiet.

A cry from the rear drew him from his anger. 

“St. George!” 

De Nablas and another knight, Baldwin De Carron, who Gabriel knew only by face, had broken the ranks of the Hospitaller knights and charged into Saladin’s army. The rest of the knights and the French soldiers before them, driven by the cry, charged into the fray. 

The soldiers around Gabriel fell into disorganization and he lost sight of Simon in the confusion, his heart constricting in painful, panicked spasms. 

Around him he heard the cry of the trumpets, signalling to the rest of the army to launch a counter strike. 

Gabriel was engulfed in the battle, the smell of shit and steel and blood, hot and cloying in his nostrils. He lost count of how many men he saw fall as he charged forward, his sword raised at his side. 

Richard himself lead the first and second charges against the Saracens, the sun glinting off his armour. 

In short order, Gabriel lost his horse to a javelin and everything he carried but his sword, on it. His Grace lurched inside him and he heard a scream pierce the already saturated air. 

Simon. 

He fought his way through the crowd of fighting and dying men. He sliced indiscriminately at the bodies in front of him, desperate to get to Simon. His Grace roiled inside of him, spurring him onward and burning so hot it hurt. 

Simon was lying on the ground, between two dead Turkish soldiers, his face pale and covered in blood.

 _Too pale,’_ Gabriel thought in a stunned moment. 

He crossed the space between them in no time at all, dropping to his knees next to Simon. The injured knight looked up hopefully. 

“I’m sorry I’m not him,” Gabriel whispered, carding a hand through the sweat-soaked hair he had always wanted to touch. He could already see the wound would be fatal, a deep puncture into his abdomen. It would make dying torturously slow and excruciatingly painful. 

Simon’s lips quivered, as he stared unfocused into Gabriel’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he croaked. “Please- please… kill me.” 

It took Gabriel a moment to digest the words Simon had said to him. “What?” 

“Kill me, Sir George,” he rasped. “Do me this one small kindness, even though I do not deserve it. I was most unkind to you. Allow me to die with dignity.” 

Gabriel nodded, unable to kindle a smile for the dying man. His eyes were full of tears as he took in the man whole, the man who was both Sabina and Surtr and Sami, and was yet his own person. Gabriel laid a gentle kiss on his brow as he rose to ready his sword. 

He cleaned the blade the best he could on the grimy mess that was his breeches. Simon at least deserved to die on a clean sword. 

“One last favor, Sir George?” 

Gabriel looked down on him, the brave man whom he had loved but who had not loved him back. “Yes?”

“Tell Richard I love him.” 

Gabriel didn’t respond, pain lancing through his grace, as he drove the sword into Simon’s heart. 

It was his own heart that bled the most.


	6. Part 6: New York City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I recognized you instantly. All of our lives flashed through my mind in a split second. I felt a pull so strongly towards you that I almost couldn't stop it.”― J. Sterling, In Dreams

Gabriel had never understood Prohibition. Banning something only made it more appealing to the masses, and to him — even if he couldn’t get properly drunk despite the rotgut, bathtub gin the speakeasies were serving. 

All Prohibition had done was create an underground culture of iniquity that allowed monsters like himself an easy meal. There were plenty of poor saps for him to choose from, his trickster alter ego coming out to play for the first time in the better part of a century. It was too easy to fuck with the rich, taking their money and watch them flounder like the common man. 

Speakeasies were his ideal hunting ground, full of drunk people with money burning holes in their pockets and the promise of scantily clad young women in front of them. The new “flapper” style was positively scandalous by society’s standards, but demure compared to what Gabriel had experienced elsewhere. 

Gabriel’s favorite spot, Chumley’s, was filled as always, being one of the more popular venues if you wanted to be seen. It was full of interesting people, artists and writers, playwrights and journalists, the kind of people Gabriel enjoyed the most. 

There were plenty of girls there, many more beautiful than she was, but Gabriel noticed her first, before the familiar twang of his grace pulled him towards her. She was trying to get the bartender’s attention, a swirl of tassels in mint and cream. She teetered on leather heels, the white feather of her headband bobbing as she bounced on her toes. He didn’t even have to look into her eyes to know what lay behind them, but he did anyway. 

His soul. 

‘Sabina-Surtr-Sami-Simon,’ his brain provided when the dull ache of his heart rendered him unable to move. The girl turned to him once she’d gotten her drink, smiling up at him with gaped, uneven teeth. Her eyes were black, not dark brown, but well and truly black, ringed with lashes darkened with mascara. Her hair was the same extraordinary tone, slicked back in a short, sleek bob under her cream colored headband. Her facial features spoke of mixed heritage, almond shaped slanted eyes, wide nose and round full lips. 

Gabriel couldn’t take his eyes off her, just like with all the other people that had housed his soul, drawn and tied by the tug of his Grace. He couldn’t even hear her when she spoke to him, mesmerized by the movement of her lips. 

“What?” he finally managed, moving closer to her. 

She laughed at him, taking a sip of her drink and grimacing at the taste. “I said why don’t you come over and talk instead of just starin’, I don’t bite.” 

“I might,” he quipped, nipping playfully at her. “What’s your name, doll?”

“Stella. Stella Wilson,” she giggled, giving her his hand. He took it in his, feeling the callouses on her delicate fingers. 

He mock bowed to her, not letting her hand go. “George Gabriel, at your service, Miss Wilson.” 

She giggled again, a gentle mocking sound. He could get drunk off a laugh like that. “Do you dance, Mr. George Gabriel? Because I could sure use a dance right about now.”

He didn't even have a chance to respond before she grabbed his hand and swept him onto the dance floor. 

The energy between them was electric, as soul and grace connected where their bodies touched. Gabriel found himself breathless, the raw emotion opening the healed scar tissue of his heart. He almost pulled away, should have pulled away from her and headed as far away from New York as he could possibly get, but he'd never been good at self-control. He was thirsty for more, like a dying man taking his first sip of water. 

Her past lives flashed over him as they danced, Sabina's smile, Surtr's laugh, the curve of Sami’s lashes, the tenderness around Simon's eyes, and he drank it all in, getting far more drunk on the heady mix than he ever would on alcohol alone. 

Gabriel had always been a good dancer, the music spoke to him in a way only angels could understand, but he found himself tripping over his own feet, inebriated on memories. 

Stella laughed at him when they stopped and he grinned like an idiot at her. "You better not scuff my shoes," she giggled. "My mama will tan my hide." 

"I'm sorry, Miss Stella," he apologized. "I just can't concentrate on the steps with a beauty like you in front of me." 

She blushed hotly, smirked at him. “You watch that silver tongue, George,” Stella admonished playfully. “It’ll get you in trouble.” 

“Maybe I want to get in trouble,” he winked. The music started anew behind him, and Stella straightened up at once. 

“You know the lindy hop?” she asked, grabbing his hand. Gabriel felt it like a shot in his arm. 

“I do,” he whispered to her, pulling her close. He’d spent far too much time in speakeasies and dance halls all over New York City to not know it. It was an energetic new dance to jazz music and involved a lot of swinging and acrobatics. To say he was good was an understatement, at least in his opinion. 

The music picked up and Gabriel swung Stella out, and then pulled her back in. He didn’t try anything crazy at first, just to get a feel for her and her style. When it became clear to him she knew what she was doing, he led her to more complicated routine. 

A crowd formed around them as they danced, eyes wide and round. Gabriel held Stella around the waist, thrusting her up as she jumped, and slinging her from one side of his legs to the other. When he picked her up again, her legs came around his waist and locked ankles around the small of his back. Gabriel dipped her low and brought her back up again. Stella let go, her face wild and flushed, and touched down on the ground again, leather shoes skipping across the floor. By the time the song ended, they were both panting and in dire need of a drink and cold air. 

Gabriel grabbed them each a tumbler before they retreated from the whispers and prying eyes to one of the back tables closest to the exit door. 

“Where’d you learn to dance like that?” Stella asked finally when her breathing slowed. She took a tentative sip of the gin and grimaced as she swallowed. He watched the movement of her throat. 

“The Savoy,” he replied, taking a sip of his own glass, trying to keep a straight face and failing. It was better than what they normally had, but still awful. 

Stella’s eyes widened with surprise. “You’ve danced at the Savoy?” 

The Savoy was the ballroom where the lindy hop had started. It was famous for its dancing and for its policy on segregation. While most speakeasies and ballrooms were whites only, the Savoy wasn’t. 

“Yes indeed.” He smirked. “We should go sometime. With skills like yours, you’d be a hit!” 

Stella looked excited for a moment, but then she closed her eyes as if she was in pain, a wrinkle forming between her brows. She swayed a bit, gripping the table to stay upright. “I’m sorry. I have to go!” she said quickly, standing shakily. Stella looked as if she might throw up. 

“Are you alright? I can walk you home?” he offered. 

“N-no no. I’ll be fine,” she snapped, holding the back of the chair. Her skin had a waxy sheen, and she swallowed thickly. “Goodnight George!” 

Gabriel stood dumbfounded as she pushed open the back door and disappeared into the alley. 

With only a moment’s hesitation, he followed her, but when he reached the back alley, she was gone. 

~~~~

Gabriel tried to tell himself that losing her like that had been a stroke of luck. He also berated himself mercilessly, knowing what happened to the people his soul was housed in: they met him and then they died. It would be better if they’d never met at all. Sami and Simon had proved that just being near him was enough to cause death, they didn’t have to love or even know him to pay with their lives.

It might be already too late for her, he thought, nausea cramping in his gut. She might already be dead because of him, like all the others. Sabina, Surtr, Simon and Sami especially, all casualties of their connection to him. It was all his fault, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Maybe… at least, in this day and age, it would be natural...

Gabriel tried to get lost in the City. It couldn’t be that hard to avoid one person in five million, could it? 

He stopped frequenting Chumley’s, knowing that she would most likely be there. He even stopped going to the Savoy, knowing that there was an off chance she’d be there after their night together. 

He didn’t expect that she’d come looking for him. 

He was lounging in his apartment when he heard the knock at the door. Grumbling and stretching, he got to his feet and opened the door only to find Stella standing there, holding a parcel in her arms. 

“You’re a hard man to find,” she smiled, color high in her cheeks from the chill fall weather outside. 

Gabriel’s mouth hung open for a moment in surprise, and he almost smiled, her tenacity reminding him of Sabina for the briefest moment. He set his face in a stern look instead, jaw clenched. 

“There’s a reason for that, you know,” he answered, leaning against the doorframe. He had told himself if he ever saw her again he’d be strong and send her away. He had to, for her sake. 

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” she asked coyly, her smile drooping a bit. As she came closer, Gabriel could see her face was fuller than it had been the last time he had seen her. Was she sick?

“No, I’m not,” he stated. “It’s dangerous for you to be around me. I shouldn’t have danced with you the other night. ” He felt sick to his stomach as the look on her face turned pained. 

“Are you a gangster or something?” Stella shot back, her gaze growing more and more insolent. 

“Or something is right,” Gabriel admitted. “It’s for your own good.” 

The sulk Stella put on looked so much like Surtr’s that Gabriel felt like he would vomit. His whole body hurt, his grace throbbing as her soul threw anger and hatred in thick, unrelenting waves. 

“Thank you, Mother,” she spat back at him, dropping the box in her arms and storming off down the hallway. The whole building shook as she slammed the door behind her. 

Gabriel gingerly picked up the package she had dropped. 

Cookies. 

She’d made him cookies… and they were still warm. 

He brought them inside and dropped them into the garbage. 

~~~~

“George Gabriel!” 

Gabriel stopped dead in his tracks, feet cold in the snow. He was walking in Time Square, enjoying a steaming hot cup of cocoa when his name rang out behind him. 

He turned to find Stella staring at him from beneath her heavy woolen hat. She was bundled head to foot in warm clothing, only the tip of her nose and bright eyes visible under her many layers. 

“Hello, Ms. Wilson,” he greeted her formally, standing awkwardly. “How lovely you’re looking today.”

She rolled her eyes at him, hopping from foot to foot in an effort to keep warm through the stinging cut of the wind. 

“I haven’t seen you,” she murmured at him, her eyes following his every breath. 

“I know.” 

“I’ve been looking for you,” Stella ventured, stepping closer to him. He took a small step back, out of her reach. 

“I know.” 

“I have never met a man who doesn’t want to be found by a pretty girl,” she murmured, eyes shining. Stella started to cough, but quickly covered her mouth with a handkerchief. Gabriel barely caught the pink tinge of it as she hastily shoved it back into her pocket. 

“I already told you, Stella -” he started, but she cut him off. 

“Yeah, I know, I know.” She sounded annoyed, petulant like a child denied her dessert. “You’re dangerous. It’s for my own good.” 

“That’s right,” Gabriel responded. It hurt to have to send her away again. He didn’t want to, his Grace swelling inside him at the mere sight of her. He wanted to hold her, to feel the human thrum of her heart against him, to savor it before it went out. He had already condemned her, the least he could do was let her live her life, what was left of it, safe. 

“I’m dying,” she blurted out. 

“What?” It took Gabriel a moment to process. 

“George, I’m dying,” she repeated, moving closer. This time he didn’t pull away. 

He stood there dumbfounded. She was so young, the very picture of health, how could she of all people be dying?

“There’s a problem with my heart,” she mumbled, staring down at her feet in the snow. “Since I was born actually, but last year… last year, it got worse. We ain’t got money for doctors, and there’s nothing that can be done.” 

It only took Gabriel a moment to close the space between them, to press Stella up against him without a word. He listened, really listened in a way he hadn’t done since Rome. Ahhh, there it was, he thought. Mingled with the lub-dub of blood pumping, there was an undeniable wrongness too, like a balloon with a slow leak. 

He wished he could heal her, he used to be able to, to just touch a human to heal them, but he didn’t have to try to know he couldn't. It didn’t work that way, not with them. He remembered Sabina for a quick second, and then pushed the thought away, preferring to listen to Stella’s heart. 

Despite the dire circumstances and the damaged heart pumping in his ear, there was a well of hope springing inside him. For once, it wasn’t his fault, for once, he had time. Time to fix it. 

Gabriel leaned down and kissed her, pulling her against him as the snow drifted down around him. Stella melted under his touch, and he felt her small hands making their way around his waist.

And for once, there weren’t ghosts hanging over his shoulder. 

Just him and her. 

Together. 

~~~  
Gabriel had never been scholarly. He loved to read, but never boring medical texts, preferring something that made him feel things. But you never would have guessed from the way he devoured every book on heart problems he could get his hands on. He read until the library closed, and then broke back in when the guard popped out for a nightcap. 

The only thing Gabriel had time for besides research was Stella. Stella, with her never ending smiles, Stella, who never complained as he dragged her from doctor to doctor, all for the same answer. As long as he had her, he didn’t care about anything else. He would exhaust himself before he gave up. 

But time was slipping away from him, through his fingers like water. The drinking stopped first, that was a given. The dancing went next, it tired her out too much and she couldn’t keep up. For a while, Stella was content to just sit in the dance hall and watch the dancers go by, tapping her feet to the music, but soon even that became too much. Finally, she could barely go out at all. 

The winter became spring, and spring became summer, and the bloom faded from Stella’s cheeks like green from the leaves in the autumn. She spent more time being carried than walking, and then more time in bed than out of it. Most of the time, he just watched her sleep. 

He dozed off himself late one afternoon and woke up to her staring at him. 

“What’re you looking at, doll?” 

“Nothin’” Her voice was heavy with sleep. “Just a silly man.” 

He laughed just a bit, taking her hand. She tried to squeeze it, but could barely muster the strength to do it. 

“You have to let me go, sugar,” she whispered. “I’m not gunna last much longer.” 

“Don’t say that.” He pulled her hand to his lips, kissing her dry knuckles. Her hands, which used to be plump, were all skin and bones now, drained by her sickness. “I’ll find something soon. I can feel it.”

“I don’t want you to.”

Gabriel stopped and looked deep into her eyes, so deep he could see the flicker of scarlet and gold behind her pupils. Even her soul was dimming now. 

“What do you want?” he croaked, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. 

“I want to dance, one more time.” She squeezed his hand, and Gabriel could feel his heart crack. 

“I think I can arrange that.” 

And he did, with the help of her mother and a few friends. They turned the living room into their own party, complete with a full band and dance floor. He gussied up as best he could and went to pick her up from her room. 

His breath caught in his throat when Stella opened the door. She almost looked healthy, if he didn’t look at her arms, or the hollows under her eyes. She was dressed in the mint and cream dress she’d been wearing when they first met. 

“You clean up nice, kid,” he smiled, offering her his arm. 

“You don’t look so bad yourself.” She took it gratefully, leaning on him as they descended the stairs. Her friends gave a cheer when they reached the bottom, launching into a lively tune. Gabriel had never seen Stella smile so big as when they started dancing. 

She sat next to the floor, watching each move with interest. He walked over and held his hand out to her.

“May I have this dance?” 

Stella looked up at him, confused. “I can’t-”

Gabriel pulled her to her feet, against him. “Trust me,” he whispered in her ear. She nodded at him, following him to the floor. 

On his signal, the music slowed to a crawl and the rest of the dancers stepped off the floor. Stella’s skinny arms ringed his neck as he scooped her into his arms. Even with his strength, she barely weighed a thing. Gabriel swayed back and forth to the music, adding a spin randomly, causing the girl in his arms to let out a thin laugh. She clung to him tightly, pressing cold kisses to his cheeks. 

When the song ended, he let her down, guiding her back to her chair. “Was that okay?” he asked, taking her hand again. 

“That was perfect.” 

Stella insisted on keeping the party going into the night, even though she could barely keep her eyes open. When Gabriel kicked them out, she was lolling against his shoulder, asleep in her chair. 

She awoke when he started carrying her up the stairs to her bedroom. “Thank you, George,” she mumbled, cuddling her nose against his neck. He could feel how feebly her heart was beating through her thin ribcage. 

“The pleasure was all mine, Miss Stella,” he replied, kissing her forehead as he laid her in bed and covered her with layers of blankets. She got cold too easily.

Gabriel set himself down in the chair, pulling another blanket over himself. Stella watched him through heavily lidded eyes, looking like a mummy among her wrappings. 

“I love you, George,” she mouthed, her voice barely more than a whisper. 

“I love you too.” It was the first time he’d ever said it, and it felt like a death sentence. 

He watched as her eyes closed and she drifted back to sleep. He watched each rise and fall of her chest, each flutter of her eyes behind almost translucent lids. He watched until he too drifted off. 

When he opened his eyes, she was cold and still. 

Gabriel crawled onto the bed, pulling her body against his own chest, visions of previous bodies flashing through his mind. He wanted to speak, to say her name just one more time, to feel the weight of it dance across his tongue. 

But in the end, all he could do was cry.


	7. Part 7: Springfield, Ohio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I feel like a part of my soul has loved you since the beginning of everything. Maybe we’re from the same star.” ― Emery Allen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used transcripts to get a dialogue right on the following chapters. I do not own it, or lay any claim to it, just borrowed if for my poor sad babies.

College towns were some of Gabriel’s favorite places. Full of young, dumb humans with too much time on their hands and not enough common sense. It was the last place he expected to find hunters.

He marked them for what they were as soon as he saw them swagger across the lawn and up the steps of Crawford Hall, sniffing around after the death of that professor he’d killed the week before. They were large men, wearing multiple layers and carrying themselves like they stabbed things for a living. He had seen the type before, so he decided to have a little fun.

They came closer and Gabriel’s breath caught in his throat, his grace twanging inside him. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut as he recognized the body as well as the soul. 

Sam Winchester, Lucifer’s vessel, a face that had been etched into his mind since time began.

_No._

He wanted to vomit as his soul approached him, in the form of a hunter. Sam was taller than most people Gabriel dealt with. He had longish chestnut hair and hazel eyes, with a bright, intelligent face. He reminded Gabriel of a young horse, not knowing what to do with those long legs just yet.

“What can I do you for boys?” he forced himself to speak, sliding his clammy hands into the pockets of his janitor’s uniform.

The smaller man spoke first, and Gabriel saw the flash behind his eyes, green and silver. Hello, Dagmar and David.

Dean Winchester, the man meant for Michael. He had a pretty face, Gabriel would admit. Bright green eyes, full lips, cheeks spattered with light freckles. Tall and bow-legged, he was dressed in flannel and leather, reeking of the road.

“We’re electricians. The Dean sent us over to look at the wiring.”

Gabriel shrugged at him and led them down the hall.

Finally Sam spoke. “So, how long've you been working here?”

Gabriel played his part, fighting back the wave of emotion threatening to drown him. “I've been mopping this floor for six years.” He turned on the lights as they followed him into the professor’s office. “There you go, guys. What the heck's that for?”

Gabriel pointed to the object Sam had pulled out of his pocket. It looked like he’d made it himself out of spare parts. He shook it a little bit, showing it to Gabriel.

“Just to find a wire in the walls,” he responded. Did they really think he was that stupid?

“Huh. Wow.” Gabriel gave a shrug. “Not sure why you're wiring up this office. Not gonna do the professor much good.”

Dean looked at him quizzically, his green eyes boring through him. “Why's that?”

Gabriel shot him a confused look. “He's dead.”

“Oh. What happened?” Dean asked, Sam nodding along with his brother. Gabriel felt a lump starting to form as he looked at him.

“He went out that window. Right there.” Gabriel pointed to an open window. He didn’t point out that he was the one who caused it.

“Yeah? Were you working that night?” Sam asked, getting a little too close to him.

Gabriel crossed his arm. “I'm the one who found him.”

“You see it happen?”

Dean meanwhile was distracted by the peanuts in the bowl on the professor’s table.

“Nope. I just saw him come up here, and uh... well.” Gabriel stopped for dramatic effect.

“What?” Sam looked down on him, his hazel eyes skimming over Gabriel’s body.

“He wasn't alone.”

Dean had come up from the nut bowl, still crunching as he came back into the conversation. “Who was he with?”

“He was with a young lady.” Gabriel forced himself to smirk at the two other men, ever the actor. “I told the cops about her, but uh, I guess they never found her.”

Sam returned his smile. “You saw this girl go in, huh? But did you ever see her come out?”

Gabriel pretended to think. “Now that you mention it, no.”

“You ever see her before, around?” Sam asked him, his manner friendly and affable.

“Well, not her,” Gabriel added quickly.

Dean’s mouth was still full of peanuts. “What do you mean?”

Sam glared at his brother.

“I don't mean to cast aspersions on a dead guy, but, uh . . . Mister Morality here?” he paused. “He brought a lot of girls up here. Got more ass than a toilet seat.”

Dean cracked up at his lame joke and Sam gave him a bitch face. Gabriel’s heart contracted, it had been so long since he’d seen that face.

“One more thing. This building, it only has four stories, right?” Sam turned back to him, and Gabriel swallowed his pain.

“Yeah?”

Sam looked him over carefully and Gabriel felt a chill. “So there wouldn't be a room six-six-nine?”

“'Course not. Why do you ask?”

Sam shrugged, just a curious workman looking for a way to pass the day. “Aw, just curious. Thanks.”

Dean nodded at him, and the two Winchesters left him to his work.

Gabriel made it to the locker room before he collapsed onto his knees, dry heaving onto the cold tile floor.

He couldn’t do this again. It had nearly killed him last time, nearly caused him to open his veins with his own blade. And for his soul to be housed in Lucifer’s vessel, doomed before he’d even gotten a chance to live...

_Father… why have you forsaken me?_

~~~

Gabriel sat reading in his red velvet arm chair, enjoying the trashy magazine like he didn’t have a care in the world. He was dressed comfortably in a tank top and his favorite red satin boxers. Rugby was nipping at his feet.

“Come here.”

He picked the dog up. “Could you eat? I could eat. Come on.”

He put the dog on the floor and sat up, sipping at the champagne flute in his hand.

His table was covered in lavish sweets, all his favorite kinds, snapped into existence for his pleasure alone. 

“Something’s missing” he said out loud. He snapped, and two scantily-clad girls appeared on either side of him, one blonde and one brunette. Smiling, he dipped his fingers into a pastry and took some whipped cream, offering two fingers to the brunette. Seductively, she licked them off.

“That’s better.”

She moaned around his fingers.

It had taken him two days to get his head right again, to get back on his game. He swore to himself he wasn’t going to bite this time, no matter what. It wouldn’t do any good. Regardless of how he felt, or if they fell in love, Sam would still let Lucifer out of his box and start the apocalypse. That was all she wrote.

Gabriel knew they’d be back for him, it was only a matter of time before they figured out that he was what they were hunting. He would play his part and then disappear, back into hiding, until it was time for the final showdown.

There was no avoiding that. Ever since Lucifer had been thrown from Heaven, the apocalypse was set in motion. He knew there was no stopping it. Whatever the outcome, Gabriel just wanted it to be over. He couldn’t stomach Michael and Lucifer tearing each other apart now anymore than he could in Heaven. Sam Winchester would die, and the world would end, and despite running from it for all of his long life, Gabriel accepted it. That didn’t mean he had to like it.

He pulled the brunette towards him and thought no more.

~

They returned, just as he knew they would, the next day, looking worse for wear. Gabriel knew his trickster magic was turning them on each other, wearing them out. He led them back into the building.

“Sorry I'm dragging a little ass today, boys. Had quite the night last night.” He turned to give them a smug look. “Lots of sex, if you catch my drift.”

Dean smiled, his lips tight. “Yeah, hard not to. Listen, we won't be long. We just need to check a couple offices up on three.”

“No problem.”

Behind them, Sam stopped walking, awkwardly feeling his pocket. “I, uh, forgot something in the truck,” he stated. ”You know what? I'll catch up with you guys.”

Dean didn’t look surprised at all. “Okay.”

Sam walked away, and Dean followed Gabriel up the stairs. While he waited for Dean to stop fiddling with the wires (Dad knew he didn’t even make it look convincing), Gabriel glanced out the window towards the parking lot. There was no sign of Sam.

Dean finished up and thanked him with a handshake, hurrying off. Gabriel watched Sam come from inside the building towards Dean and meet in the parking lot, watched them talk, watched them argue, their faces furiously contorted. They parted ways, Sam stalking off towards a black car, Dean settling onto a bench.

 _‘Tut tut boys,’_ he thought. _‘Staking me out are we? Can’t have that.’_ He smiled to himself as he went to the auditorium to prepare.

It only took till nightfall before Dean got sick of waiting. Gabriel surveyed him from the window, snapping into his place when the hunter left his post.

He watched from the worn green audience seats, invisible as the other man walked into the auditorium, his face confused as he noticed Gabriel’s offering.

Set up on the stage was a round bed, decked out with red velvet blankets and a canopy, a disco ball hanging over it, Barry White playing in the background. Gabriel’s companions of the previous night are lying sprawled across it, dressed in scraps of satin and lace. As Dean walked closer, they crawled towards the end of the bed, beckoning him.

“We've been waiting for you, Dean.” the brunette purred.

“Y-Y-You guys aren't real,” Dean stuttered back, his eyes raking the woman’s breasts.

“Trust me, sugar, it's gonna feel real.”

Dean laughed nervously, looking from one to the other.

The blonde tried next. “Come on. Let us give you a massage.”

The hunter swallowed anxiously “Wha... You know, I'm a -- I'm a sucker for a happy ending. Really, I am, but... I-I'm gonna have to pass.”

Gabriel made himself visible, unable to control himself. “They're a peace offering. I know what you and your brother do. I've been around a while. Run into your kind before.”

“Well, then you know that I... can't let you just keep hurting people,” Dean replied, fingering his jacket.

Gabriel scoffed. “Come on! Those people got what was coming to them. Hoisted on their own petards. But you and Sam… I like you. I do. So treat yourself... As long as you want. Just long enough for me to move on to the next town.”

But Dean persisted. “Yeah, I don't think I can let you do that.”

“I don't wanna hurt you. And you know that I can.” Gabriel warned him again. It wasn’t true, but Dean didn’t need to know that. There’d be hell to pay if he so much as dinged his brothers’ vessels.

“Look, man, I… I got to tell you, I dig your style, all right? I mean,” the hunter laughed. “I do. I mean... and the slow-dancing alien...”

Gabriel grinned, it was nice to be appreciated once in a while, for someone to really get him. “One of my personal favorites. Yeah.”

“But, uh, I can't let you go.”

“Too bad. Like I said, I like you. Sam was right. You shouldn't've come alone.”

It was Dean’s turn to smirk. “Well, I'll agree with you there.”

Gabriel heard the door of the auditorium slam shut behind him and he looked back to see Sam, holding a large wooden stake, and another older man, wearing a trucker hat and a plaid shirt, standing at the top of the opposite aisle, with a stake of his own.

Gabriel had to admit that it took balls to pull their plan off. “That fight you guys had outside... that was a trick?” Dean smiled at him, clearly proud he had just out-tricked a trickster. “Hm. Not bad. But you want to see a real trick?”

He snapped.

A masked man with a chainsaw, straight out of a horror movie, appeared next to Sam and attacked him. The two women on the stage, previously so docile and pretty, bounded from their places on stage to take on Dean.

“Ah, ha ha.” Gabriel laughed, snapping himself a sandwich and watching the action. ”Ooh.” He watched with glee as his girls landed another hit. “Ooh!”

Dean landed on the seats closest to where Gabriel sat. He began clapping. “Nice toss, ladies! Nice show.”

Gabriel stood up from his seat, looming over him. “Dean... Dean, Dean, Dean,” he tutted, looking down on the prone hunter. “I did not want to have to do this,” he murmured.

Sam tossed Dean a stake and Dean took his chance, shoving the stake into the trickster’s chest. “Me neither.” He ground it in and Gabriel watched, pretending to be in pain as he willed his illusions to dissipate. Theatrically, he dropped into his seat, the stake still embedded in his chest, blood streaming from the wound and from his lips.

The real Gabriel waited until the boys drove away before examining his own dead body.

He slipped out, leaving no trace he’d ever been there.


	8. Part 8: Broward County, Florida

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What if you find your soul mate... at the wrong time?” ― Lauren Kate, Passion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys get an early chapter this week because I'll be posting my Rare Pair Big Bang fic tomorrow! (Surprise! It's Sabriel!)
> 
> As with the past chapter, much of this was one was pulled from transcripts of the episode. Enjoy!

He should have stayed away, but Gabriel was never any good at self-control. The moment he heard the Winchesters were in town, he couldn’t help himself. After their last encounter, he’d done a lot of research on his two intrepid hunters. According to his sources, it was a well-known fact that Sam and Dean were unhealthily attached to one another, that Dean Winchester had sold his soul to save his brother, and that Sam was trying everything to save him in return.

Gabriel was reminded so strongly of his brothers, so hell-bent on protecting each other they were willing to sacrifice themselves to do it. Lucifer had taken on the mark in an effort to save his brother. He had unknowingly condemned himself, to save Michael from being swallowed by the Darkness, and it had destroyed everything. He couldn’t let Sam go down the same path. He had to be taught a lesson.

It was as simple as going about his normal business, giving a man who deserved it his just desserts. It was only a matter of time before it reached the Winchesters, and when they arrived a week later, he was not disappointed. So nice of them to walk directly into his trap.

He watched as Sam and Dean left their crappy motel, and went to the local diner for breakfast. He couldn’t resist getting a closer look, disguising himself as a middle aged businessman and parking himself at the counter, with his pancakes.

“Hey. Tuesday. Pig in a poke.” Behind him, Dean pointed to the specials poster.

Sam was having none of his nonsense. “You even know what that is?”

Doris the waitress came out from behind the counter and walked over to her new customers, her pad hovering in her hand . “You boys ready?”

Sam and Dean ordered and returned to their conversation. They’d obviously caught his hints.

“I'm telling you, Sam, this job is small fry. We should be spending our time hunting down Bela.”

Gabriel could here the eye-roll in Sam’s voice. “Okay, sure, let's get right on that. Where is she again?”

“Shut up.”

“Look,” Sam started, conceding. “Believe me, I want to find her as bad as you do. In the meantime, we have this.” There was the sound of rustling paper as Sam pulled out a newspaper. “Alright, so this professor… Dexter Hasselback was passing through town last week when he vanished.”

“Last known location?”

“His daughter says he was on his way to visit the Broward County Mystery Spot.”

Gabriel poured maple syrup over his pancakes and began to eat them. Even after all this time, they still tasted like molecules.

“Where the laws of physics have no meaning.”

The waitress walked up with their coffee. “Two coffees, black, and some hot sauce for the-” She gasped loudly as the bottle teetered off the tray and smashed to the ground. “Whoops. Crap! Sorry… Cleanup!”

The rest of their breakfast passed without incident. Gabriel finished his pancakes and skipped out early, going invisible to get another peek. He watched them walk out of the diner, consumed in their conversation, and bump into the blonde he had planted with her stack of papers.

He smirked to himself as they got into the Impala and drove off towards the Mystery Spot.

The fun was only beginning.

~~~

He showed up in the diner in the same disguise to watch the show. Sam and Dean walked in, same as yesterday, Dean making the same corny joke about the special, the waitress taking change from Cal, the man at the counter, but Sam was different. He stared at everything, scrutinizing every detail on the scene before him.

Dean ordered his pig ‘n a poke, but Same ordered nothing, still looking around suspiciously. Eating his pancakes, Gabriel listened in.

“I'm telling you, Sam, this job is small fry. We should be spending our time hunting down Bela.”

Sam didn’t respond.

“Hey.” Dean snapped his fingers in Sam’s face. “You with me?”

Sam came to, staring at him, confused. “What?”

Dean regarded him cautiously. “You sure you feel okay?”

Sam sighed loudly. “You don't… you don't remember? Any of this?”

“Remember what?”

Sam sounded frustrated. “This. Today. Like it's… like it's... happened before?”

“You mean like déjà vu?”

“No, I mean like, like it's really happened before,” Sam insisted.

Dean brushed him off. “Yeah. Like déjà vu.”

“No, forget about déjà vu,” Sam pushed. “I'm asking you if it feels like, like we're living yesterday all over again.”

“Okay, how is that not dé-”

“Don't, don't say it!” Sam snapped at his brother angrily. “Just don't even…”

The waitress arrived with her tray with Dean’s coffee and hot sauce for his breakfast. “Coffee, black, and some hot sauce for the—oops! Crap!”

Gabriel heard Doris gasp and snuck a quick peek over his shoulder. Sam caught the bottle as it fell off her tray.

Doris smiled at him, looking impressed. “Thanks.” She put the bottle down next to Dean and walked back behind the counter to help other customers.

“Nice reflexes,” Dean joked, grinning like an idiot.

Sam swallowed, his frustration and confusion scrawled across his face in hard lines.

It only got better from there.

Gabriel trailed behind, watching Sam react to each repeat with confusion and anger. The fact that Dean didn’t remember any of it only exacerbated Sam’s reactions, and Dean was having none of it, still looking at his brother as if he had multiple heads.

Until he stepped out into the street, and got hit by a car.

Sam dropped to his brother’s side, hands trembling as he looked for signs of life. “Hey, Dean,” his voice shook. “Dean. Dean.”

The loop started over again.

The third Tuesday started with Sam ordering for Dean and trying again to convince him they’d lived through this once already. It ended with Dean crushed to death under a safe, a la Wile E. Coyote, one of Gabriel’s personal favorites.

_t was the heat of the moment._

On the fourth Tuesday in a row, Dean choked to death on a sausage.

_It was the heat of the moment._

Dean died randomly in the shower. A deadness started to creep into the space behind Sam’s eyes.

_It was the heat of the moment._

The tacos tasted funny.

_It was the heat of the moment._

Who knew an electric razor could kill you?

_Telling me what your heart meant._

Sam should really work on his axe safety.

_The heat of the moment shone in your eyes._

Gabriel should have been more amused, this was one of his best after all, but he wasn’t. He watched every day as a hardness stole over Sam, growing worse each day as he struggled unsuccessfully to keep Dean alive.

Gabriel should have been laughing, but he wasn’t.

It just wasn’t fun anymore. Time to shake it up.

He made one small change to the script, one tiny miniscule detail, knowing Sam would catch it. And catch it he did.

Gabriel barely made it out of the diner before Sam slammed him into the fence. “Hey!” he squawked.

“I know who you are. Or should I say, what,” Sam growled, teeth clenched as he held Gabriel by his throat.

“Oh my god, please don't kill me,” Gabriel begged, putting on a good show. Oscar-winning if he said so himself.

Dean looked nervously from Gabriel to Sam. “Uh, Sam?”

“It took me a hell of a long time but I got it.” Sam glared down, pressed the wooden stake against Gabriel’s neck.

“What?”

“It's your MO that gave you away. Going after pompous jerks, giving them their just desserts — your kind loves that, don't they?”

“Yeah, sure, okay.” Gabriel glanced nervously from Sam to the stake. “Just put the stake down!”

Dean was behind him. “Sam, maybe you should-”

“No!” Sam yelled. “There's only one creature powerful enough to do what you're doing. Making reality out of nothing, sticking people in time loops — in fact you'd pretty much have to be a god. You'd have to be a Trickster.”

“Mister, my name is Ed Coleman, my wife's name is Amelia, I got two kids, for crying out loud, I sell ad space-” Gabriel managed to sound scared, but Sam was having none of it

“Don't lie to me! I know what you are! We've killed one of your kind before!”

“Actually, bucko, you didn't.” Gabriel’s disguise melted away, revealing his true face. He wished he could get a picture of the look of shock on Sam’s face.

“Why are you doing this?”

Gabriel cocked an eyebrow. “You're joking, right? You chuckleheads tried to kill me last time. Why wouldn't I do this?”

Dean leaned forward, looking at him with disgust. “And Hasselback, what about him?”

“That putz? He said he didn't believe in wormholes, so I dropped him in one,” Gabriel laughed at him.” Then you guys showed up. I made you the second you hit town.”

Sam tightened the grip on his neck in anger. “So this is fun for you? Killing Dean over and over again?”

“One, yes. It is fun. And two? This is so not about killing Dean. This joke is on you, Sam. Watching your brother die, every day? Forever?”

“You son of a bitch.” Sam pressed the stake to his neck harder. Gabriel could almost taste his fury.

“How long will it take you to realize? You can't save your brother. No matter what,” Gabriel said. That was the lesson he was trying to teach the whole time, but it would seem that Sam failed to grasp it.

“Oh yeah? I kill you, this all ends now.”

Gabriel couldn’t have that. It wouldn’t kill him, that was true, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be a giant pain in his ass. “Oh-oh, hey, whoa! Okay. Look. I was just playing around. You can't take a joke, fine. You're out of it. Tomorrow, you'll wake up and it'll be Wednesday. I swear.”

“You're lying,” Sam breathed.

Gabriel sighed. “If I am, you know where to find me. Having pancakes at the diner.”

Sam looked over at Dean and then back at Gabriel. “No. Easier to just kill you.”

Gabriel shook his head. “Sorry, kiddo. Can't have that.”

He snapped.

~~~

Six months was far too long for Gabriel’s attention span. Despite all the hints the former angel had dropped, it still took six months for Sam Winchester to find him, and even that was with his help. The lesson hadn't stuck quite yet, and it had to. The poor boy was running in circles, although Gabriel admired his tenacity. It reminded him of Stella, sometimes a little too much.

It wasn’t hard to set up, and when it was done, he was proud of how it came out. All that was left to do was slip into his costume and let the boy come to him.

He was kneeling on the floor, turning the pages of the book when Sam entered the room, looking like he hadn't slept in months. The book was in the center of a chalk diagram with three candles and three cowls.

Gabriel stood to greet Sam, his voice lower and more gruff than it normally was. “It's good to see you, boy.” He moved to hug Sam, but he didn’t respond. Okay then.

“What are we doing here, Bobby?” Sam sounded worn.

“Well, it's the last place we're sure the Trickster worked his magic.”

“So?”

It felt like a kick in the gut. Sam sounded so… defeated. It wasn’t right. This wasn’t how Gabriel pictured this at all. He pressed on. “So you want this thing? I found a summoning ritual to bring the Trickster here.”

“What do we need?”

“Blood.”

“How much blood?” Sam asked.

“Ritual says near a gallon. And it's gotta be fresh, too,” Gabriel said, not used to the twang of Bobby’s accent on his tongue.

“Meaning we have to bleed a person dry,” Sam said, deadpan. It was like he was talking about his grocery list. 

“And it's gotta be tonight. Or not for another fifty years.”

“Then let's go get some.” He turned to leave. Gabriel didn’t move with him. The other hunter looked over his shoulder at him.

“You break my heart, kid.” And it was true. Gabriel felt a stabbing pain flow over his grace at Sam hurting. Why couldn’t he see what Gabriel was trying to teach him?

“What?”

“I'm not gonna let you murder an innocent man.”

Sam turned back around, eyeing him. “Then why'd you bring me here?”

“Why?” Gabriel yelled, trying to sound as outraged as he was able. It wasn’t hard. “Because it was the only way you'd see me! Because I'm trying to knock some sense into you! Because I thought you'd back down from killing a man!”

“Well, you thought wrong. Leave the stuff, I'll do it myself,” Sam shot back, sending a shiver down Gabriel’s spine.

“I told you, I'm not gonna let you kill a man.”

“It's none of your damn business what I do!” Sam shouted back at him, color high on his cheeks.

“You want your brother back so bad?” Gabriel pulled a knife out of his bag and held it out to Sam. “Fine.”

The anger drained from Sam’s face as he eyed the knife. “What are you talking about?”

“Better me than a civilian.” He offered the knife to Sam again. 

“You're crazy, Bobby. I'm not killing you.” He wouldn’t take the knife.

“Oh, now I'm the crazy one. Look, Sam, I'm old, I'm coming near the end of my trail. But you can keep fighting. Saving folk. But you need your brother. Let me get him back to you,” Gabriel said. Sam tried to protest, but Gabriel silenced him. “You and Dean, you boys are the closest thing I have to a family. I wanna do this.”

“Okay.” Finally Sam took the knife.

“Good.” Gabriel turned around and got to his knees. “Just make it quick.” Behind him, Sam hesitated. “Do it, son.”

“Yeah, okay, Bobby,” Sam responded. “But you wanna know why?”

Sam grabbed Gabriel by the throat, shoving the stake the angel hadn’t known he was holding through his back. “Because you're not Bobby.”

Sam twisted the stake inside him, and Gabriel fell forward onto the floor, blood spurting out of him realistically.

Gabriel let Sam sweat for a moment, letting the enormity of what he’d just done marinate in his mind.

Sam’s face morphed from a cold-blooded killer to concerned son in a matter of seconds. “Bobby? Bobby! Bobby!”

Gabriel appeared again, behind Sam, who turned slowly to face him. “You're right. I was just screwing with you. Pretty good, though, Sam. Smart. Let me tell you, whoever said Dean was the dysfunctional one has never seen you with a sharp object in your hands. Holy Full Metal Jacket.”

Sam just looked at him. “Bring him back.”

“Who, Dean? Didn't my girl send you flowers? Dean's dead. He ain't coming back. His soul's downstairs doing the hellfire rumba as we speak.”

But Sam was insistent. “Just take us back to that Tuesday- er, Wednesday… When it all started. Please. We won't come after you, I swear.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “You swear?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know.” Gabriel responded. “Even if I could-”

Sam wasn’t letting him go so easy. “You can.”

Gabriel shrugged. “True. But that don't mean I should. Sam, there's a lesson here that I've been trying to drill into that freakish Cro-Magnon skull of yours.”

“Lesson? What lesson?”

He sighed. “This obsession to save Dean? The way you two keep sacrificing yourselves for each other? Nothing good comes out of it. Just blood and pain. Dean's your weakness. And the bad guys know it too. It's gonna be the death of you, Sam. Sometimes you just gotta let people go.”

“He's my brother.”

Gabriel wanted to scream at him. ‘Lucifer and Michael were my brothers too, and they tore each other apart.’ He looked into Sam’s eyes, seeing all his previous selves flickering in the soul behind them. ‘Please,’ he wanted to beg. ‘I can’t watch you die again. I’m trying to save you from throwing your life away.’ Instead, gritting his teeth through a wave of nausea, he said: “Yup. And like it or not, this is what life's gonna be like without him.”

“Please. Just- Please.”

“I swear, it's like talking to a brick wall. Okay, look. This all stopped being fun months ago. You're Travis Bickle in a skirt, pal. I'm over it.”

Sam cocked his head. “Meaning what?”

Gabriel fought back the urge to vomit. “Meaning that's for me to know and you to find out.” 

He snapped, and ran.


	9. Part 9: Wellington, Ohio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What we find in a soulmate is not something wild to tame but something wild to run with." ~Robert Brault

Why couldn’t they leave anything alone? Why did they have to go looking for things to fuck up?

Gabriel sighed and rubbed his temples. He should just let them handle the consequences for once in their short, stupid lives. He just wanted it to be over, but no, Sam and Dean Winchester wouldn’t play their roles, didn’t learn their lesson, again.

He’d given up on trying to save his soulmate, there was no point in it. No matter what he did or didn’t do, he couldn’t save them. Gabriel just wanted it all to be over, for the fighting to stop once and for all. The Winchesters, once again, were bungling his plans, so he dropped them in his own little idiot box. This time he’d make sure his teachings stuck.

Doctor Sexy, M.D. was as good a place to start as any, and Gabriel couldn’t help but get into it. Go big or go home, right? So he slipped on the man himself and waltzed out of the elevator at Seattle Mercy Hospital, looking like sex in scrubs. Gabriel stopped next to Sam and Dean.

“Doctor.”

Dean looked down, smiling like a school girl meeting her celebrity crush for the first time. “Doctor.”

He turned to Sam slowly, drinking him in in his scrubs. “Doctor.”

Sam just nodded at him, and Dean smacked him for it.

“Doctor.”

He turned to Dean, falling right into character. “You want to give me one good reason why you defied my direct order to do the experimental face transplant on Mrs. Biehl?”

Dean’s starstruck expression melted from awed to confused. He glanced at his brother and then back at Gabriel. “One reason?” Gabriel nodded. “Sure.”

Dean then looked down, and his expression changed again, to one of anger. He slammed Gabriel against the wall with a forearm to his throat. “You're not Dr. Sexy.”

“You're crazy.”

“Really?” Dean snarled. “Because I swore part of what makes Dr. Sexy sexy is the fact that he wears cowboy boots. Not tennis shoes.”

“Yeah. You're not a fan,” Sam mumbled.

“It's a guilty pleasure,” Dean snapped back at him.

“Call security,” Gabriel barked at one of his faux-security guards.

“Yeah, go ahead, pal. See, we know who you are.” Finally, Gabriel thought.

He snapped, and everyone in the scene froze. He grinned at Sam and Dean and melted back into himself. “You guys are getting better!”

“Get us the hell out of here!”

“Or what?” Gabriel slipped out of Dean’s grip and grabbed his arm, twisting it painfully. “Don't say you have wooden stakes, big guy.”

“That was you on the police scanner, right? This is a trick,” Sam added, glaring.

“Hello?” Gabriel circled his face with a finger. “Trickster. Come on! I heard you two yahoos were in town. How could I resist?”

“Where the hell are we?” Dean asked.

Gabriel puffed out his chest a little bit. “Like it? It's all homemade. My own sets...” He rapped his knuckles on the window of a nearby door. “My own actors… call it my own little idiot box.”

“How do we get out?”

“That, my friend, is the sixty-four-dollar question.” Gabriel grinned.

“Whatever. We just, we need to talk to you. We need your help.” Sam turned to him, drilling him with those stupid hazel eyes.

Gabriel sighed. “Hm, let me guess. You two muttonheads broke the world, and you want me to sweep up your mess.”

“Please,” Sam pleaded. “Just five minutes. Hear us out.”

“Sure,” Gabriel agreed. “Tell you what. Survive the next twenty-four hours, we'll talk.”

“Survive what?” Dean questioned.

Gabriel smirked. This was so much fun. “The game!”

Dean looked at him, confused. “What game?”

“You're in it.”

“How do we play?” Dean wanted to know. Gabriel felt like smacking him. Dean was very lucky he was good looking.

“You're playing it.”

Dean wouldn’t let up. “What are the rules?”

Gabriel raised his eyebrows and grinned at the two of them, vanishing in a burst of static.

Let the game begin.

~~~

It took them a while to catch on but Gabriel had to admit that Sam had played his role nicely in his doctor get up. One point for him, but the Japanese game show was a different story.

It had all been going so well, until Castiel showed up.

His heart swelled to see his little brother, he hadn’t seen him since he’d skipped Heaven. It was good to know some things hadn’t changed. He always knew Cas had it in him.

But he was mucking up his plans, so he sent him into a little game of his own.

As he watched Sam and Dean stumble through his game show channel, something truly miraculous happened; Sam’s lightbulb sputtered to life, and he realized what they had to do.

Gabriel smiled to himself. _‘Knew you’d get it kiddo.’_ He saw flashes of Simon’s cool, composed face and swallowed as pain lanced through his Grace. He tried to shake it off, he couldn’t afford to get attached, not now.

The next channel he put them in was another personal favorite, and Dean was clearly having as much fun as he was, playing basketball while Sam admitted he had genital herpes, looking extremely uncomfortable.

Gabriel couldn’t resist making an appearance in the next channel, even though Castiel was raining on his parade again.

He burst through the door in the brightly colored sitcom, to applause and cheers of his fake audience. 

“Hello!”

The first thing he did, as he saw Castiel’s eyes widen, was duct tape his mouth shut. Couldn’t have him spoiling the ending.

“Thank you. Thank you, ladies.” He waved at the crowd. “Hi, Castiel!”

His brother glared at him as Gabriel forced him to disappear in a burst of static.

Sam was the first one to speak, his face hard and tight. “You know him?”

Dean’s eyes were wild. “Where did you just send him?”

Gabriel waved him off. “Relax, he'll live… Maybe.” His witty comment was followed by a fake laugh track. He should really have one at all times.

But Dean didn’t find it all that funny. “All right, you know what? I am done with the monkey dance, okay? We get it.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah? Get what, hotshot?”

“Playing our roles, right?” Dean said. “That's your game?”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. Dean was really lucky he was pretty. “That's half the game.”

Sam eyed him carefully. “What's the other half?”

“Play your roles out there.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Dean, it would seem, was a little slow on the uptake.

“Oh, you know,” he explained. “Sam starring as Lucifer. Dean starring as Michael,” he said dramatically. “Your celebrity death match. Play your roles.” He really couldn’t spell it out any clearer.

Sam looked angry, a look that hurt Gabriel to see, Surtr’s fury written in different features. “You want us to say yes to those sons of bitches?”

Gabriel shrugged it off, tucking that particular gem of hurt to pick at later. “Hells yeah. Let's light this candle!”

“We do that, the world will end,” Sam responded, like Gabriel didn’t know.

“Yeah? And whose fault is that? Who popped Lucifer out of the box? Hm? Look, it's started. You started it. It can't be stopped. So let's get it over with!” Sam glared at him, the flames of his soul licking up behind his eyes.

“Heaven or hell, which side you on?” Dean broke in.

“I'm not on either side.”

Dean was on a roll. “Yeah, right. You're grabbing ankle for Michael or Lucifer. Which one is it?”

“You listen to me, you arrogant dick,” Gabriel snapped at the hunter. “I don't work for either of those S.O.B.s. Believe me.”

“Oh, you're somebody's bitch.”

Gabriel grabbed Dean by his collar and slammed him into the wall angrily. “Don't you ever, ever presume to know what I am. Now listen very closely. Here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna suck it up, accept your responsibilities, and play the roles that destiny has chosen for you.”

“And if we don't?” Sam asked tensely, his eyes flicking from Gabriel to Dean and back. 

Gabriel gave him a feral grin. “Then you'll stay here in TV Land. Forever. Three hundred channels and, uh, nothing's on.” He snapped his fingers, sending them on to the next channel.

It would seem Gabriel had underestimated the Winchesters’ resolve to not give in to his brothers. He would just have to try harder.

He posed as a cop in the next show he dropped them in, an overdramatic procedural cop show, something he knew Dean hated. 

He watched Dean grumble and Sam calming him, reminded strongly of Dagmar and Surtr as they started to play along. They were drawn to each other, over centuries, like he and Sam. He vaguely wondered if either of them felt the depths of their history.

Gabriel watched as he saw the brothers lean in and whisper, looking over the faux crime scene, complete with blaring police sirens, and motioning towards his dummy cop with the lollipop. Did they really think he would be that obvious?

Sam walked over to where Gabriel was standing, close to the body. The lollipop officer spoke first.

“You, uh, you okay?”

“Yeah,“ Dean answered, looking uncomfortable. “What do we got?”

Lollipop-cop knelt down next to the dead body.

“Well, aside from the ligature marks around his neck, he has what appears to be a roll of quarters jammed down his throat.”

Dean took off his sunglasses, producing a flashlight from his pocket and leaned forward to get a better look. 

“Well I say, jackpot.”

The officer snorted in laughter, looking at Dean. “Also, there is a stab wound to the lower abdomen.” He indicated the bloodstain on the dead man’s suit with his lollipop.

Dean picked up a stick off the ground and poked at the hole, getting blood on the stick. He put his sunglasses back on theatrically. “Well, I say, no guts, no glory.”

Gabriel had to admit, Dean was doing alright.

“Get that guy a Tums,” Sam added, putting his glasses on.

Not to be outdone, Dean had one more quip. “Gutter ball.”

Lollipop cop cackled. “Good one, guys.”

Meanwhile Dean came around behind the officer with the stick. He turned towards the hunter, who then plunged it into the man’s heart. The officer collapsed, struggling to breathe.

Gabriel transformed into himself and started laughing. “You've got the wrong guy, idiots.”

Dean smirked at him. “Did we?”

Gabriel barely saw Sam before he slammed the stake into Gabriel’s back. He disappeared in a burst of static. He left a doppleganger lying on the floor, snapping the Winchesters back into the clothing they came to him in.

They should have learned by now that stakes were useless, but no matter. Gabriel had better things in store.

It didn’t take long for Dean to realize his brother was missing. Gabriel watched him with his phone to his ear, heading for the Impala in a panic. Although he couldn’t hear him, Gabriel watched Dean’s confused face as he slowly realized his brother wasn’t missing, not really.

He had turned Sam into his car.

Gabriel waited until they parked to appear, rolling into an empty field and stopping.

“All right, you son of a bitch! Uncle! We'll do it!” Dean hollered at the sky.

Gabriel appeared in front of Dean. “Wow. Sam. Get a load of the rims on you.”

“Eat me.” Sam-the-car said.

“Okay, boys. Ready to go quietly?” Gabriel asked, crossing his arms.

“Whoa whoa whoa, not so fast,” Dean put in. “Nobody's going anywhere until Sam has opposable thumbs.”

“What's the difference?” Gabriel sassed him. “Satan's going to ride his ass one way or another.”

Dean looked at him flatly.

Gabriel rolled his eyes. No one appreciated his sense of humor. He snapped his fingers, and Sam got out of the car. “Happy?”

“Tell me one thing,” Dean said, looking relieved to see Sam as a person again. “Why didn't the stake kill you?”

Gabriel shrugged. “I am the Trickster.”

“Or maybe you're not.” It was Dean’s turn to smile at him, and Gabriel’s heart skipped a beat.

Next to Dean, Sam held up a flaming lighter and tossed it down on the ground. A ring of fire circled Gabriel before he could snap out of it. Well, fuck.

“Maybe you've always been an angel.”

Gabriel laughed nervously. “A what? Somebody slip a mickey in your power shake, kid?”

Dean didn’t bite. “I'll tell you what. You just jump out of the holy fire and we'll call it our mistake.”

Gabriel stopped laughing, and another burst of static returned them to the warehouse where they’d started.

Bitterly, Gabriel clapped for them. It had taken long enough but they’d outsmarted him. “Well played, boys. Well played. Where'd you get the holy oil?”

“Well, you might say we pulled it out of Sam's ass,” Dean quipped.

Gabriel smiled, but Sam wasn’t amused. “Where'd I screw up?”

“You didn't,” Sam said smugly. “Nobody gets the jump on Cas like you did.”

“Mostly it was the way you talked about Armageddon,” Dean added.

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”

“Well, call it personal experience, but nobody gets that angry unless they're talking about their own family,” Dean said.

“So which one are you?” Sam was glaring at him. “Grumpy, Sneezy, or Douchey?”

Gabriel sighed. They weren’t quite as dumb as they looked. “Gabriel, okay? They call me Gabriel.”

“Gabriel?” Sam said, his eyes widening a little in shock. “The archangel?”

Gabriel smiled at him. “Guilty.”

“Okay, Gabriel. How does an archangel become a trickster?”

There was no use in hiding anymore. They had him cornered for once, and he was too scared to be impressed. “My own private witness protection. I skipped out of Heaven, had a face transplant, carved out my own little corner of the world. Till you two screwed it all up.”

“What did Daddy say when you ran off and joined the pagans?” Dean asked scornfully.

“Daddy doesn't say anything about anything,” Gabriel spat out.

“Then what happened? Why'd you ditch?” Unlike his brother, Sam seemed genuinely interested. Gabriel wanted to vomit and then scream. In that order.

“Do you blame him? I mean, his brothers are heavyweight douchenozzles.”

“Shut your cakehole,” Gabriel growled. “You don't know anything about my family. I love my father, my brothers. Love them. But watching them turn on each other? Tear at each other's throats? I couldn't bear it! Okay? So I left. And now it's happening all over again.”

“Then help us stop it,” Sam asked.

 _‘Don’t look at me like that, kiddo,’_ Gabriel whispered to himself. He couldn’t handle those eyes, not right now. “It can't be stopped.”

“You wanna see the end of the world?”

“I want it to be over!” Gabriel snarled, finally letting it all out. He had never told anyone, not Kali, not Castiel, not anyone. “I have to sit back and watch my own brothers kill each other thanks to you two! Heaven, hell, I don't care who wins, I just want it to be over.”

“It doesn't have to be like that. There has to be some way to, to pull the plug,” Sam questioned, his eyes softening.

Gabriel laughed, but there was no humor in it, only bitter desperation. “You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. One'd think you'd be able to relate.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam’s face was a open mask of confusion.

“You sorry sons of bitches,” Gabriel said, and for once he meant it. He did feel sorry for them, poor sorry souls sucked into damnation with no choice in the matter. His heart was cracking as he explained it, reliving what he’d gone through in Heaven. “Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in Heaven, so it must be on Earth. One brother has to kill the other.”

“What the hell are you saying?” Dean snapped at him, looking murderous.

“Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you?” Gabriel yelled at them. “Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always.”

He watched as Sam and Dean looked at each other. He could feel their connection, at what they’d been through, at the things Gabriel’s family had put them through.

“No. That's not gonna happen,” Dean replied finally.

“I'm sorry. But it is.” Gabriel sighed quietly. There was nothing he could do, there never had been. He couldn’t save his brothers, and he couldn’t save Sam. “Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow… but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be.”

Moments ticked by, each man staring at the other, but never making eye contact as they each processed the situation.

“So. Boys. Now what? We stare at each other for the rest of eternity?” Gabriel mumbled, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Well, first of all, you're gonna bring Cas back from wherever you stashed him,” Dean insisted.

“Oh, am I,” Gabriel returned, staring at the hunter defiantly.

“Yeah. Or we're going to dunk you in some holy oil and deep-fry ourselves an archangel.”

Always with the violence. Gabriel snapped, and Castiel appeared in the dirty warehouse.

“Cas, you okay?” Dean asked.

“I'm fine.” Cas’ eyes didn’t leave Gabriel. “Hello, Gabriel.”

“Hey, bro. How's the search for Daddy going? Let me guess. Awful.”

Castiel glared at him, and Gabriel didn’t blame him in the least. He’d left Castiel alone, abandoned him in Heaven and then taunted him.

“Okay, we're out of here.” Dean began to walk away. “Come on, Sam.”

“Uh. Okay. Guys?”

Sam turned to follow his brother. Only Castiel remained, watching the flames burn around his brother.

“So, so what? Huh?”

Castiel followed Dean.

“You're just gonna, you're gonna leave me here forever?” Gabriel asked, showing his hand and hating himself for it. When had he gotten so soft?

Dean stopped and turned around to face him. “No. We're not, 'cause we don't screw with people the way you do. And for the record? This isn't about some prize fight between your brothers or some destiny that can't be stopped. This is about you being too afraid to stand up to your family.”

He watched as Dean pulled the fire alarm, looking up as the water drenched him.

“Don't say I never did anything for you,” Dean said, before pushing the door open.

Gabriel glared daggers at his retreating back. Sam hesitated for a moment, giving him a long, sad, penetrating glance.

Gabriel felt his boiling blood cool and his heart crack into pieces, his grace reaching out for Sam. His soulmate turned his back on him.

Castiel looked as if he wanted to say something, as if he felt something, but he too followed Dean out the door, leaving Gabriel standing alone in an empty warehouse as the fire around him burned out.

He had a lot of thinking to do… and a porno to direct.


	10. Part 10: The Elysian Fields Motel, Muncie, Indiana.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Forever is a measure of time used by people who share an ordinary love. Our extraordinary love is immeasurable... for us, forever just won't do- Steve Maraboli

They were never supposed to be there. Leave it to the Winchesters to find their way into every spot of trouble there was to be had.

So when he received Kali’s call, claiming they had the vessels, Gabriel was there as soon as he was able. He’d made up his mind, come hell or high water. No turning back now.

They were setting up for dinner when Gabriel arrived, fashionably late as always, bursting in at just the right moment.

The hotel was decently nice, seeing it was full of monsters. Gabriel would bet it was glamoured just for this meeting, he saw Kali’s exquisite taste behind the modern decorations. There were large glass walls with geometric patterns, plush white armchairs with matched white rugs. The ballroom was expansive, with similar decorations as the main lobby, with red lamps and gold tablecloths on the horseshoe shaped tables. There were gods he hadn’t seen since his days as Loki seated there, looking angry. 

“Can't we all just get along!”

He saw Dean begin to say his name and Gabriel stopped him, drawing two fingers across his throat in the air, cutting off his voice before the hunter blew his cover.

“Sam! Dean... It's always wrong place, worst time with you muttonheads, huh?” He smiled at them as they looked back, utterly lost.

Baldur’s lip curled when he saw Gabriel. “Loki,” he sniffed.

Gabriel faux gasped. “Baldur.” He should have killed the bastard better the last time. “Good seeing you too. I guess my invitation got lost in the mail.”

“Why are you here?” Baldur sniffed again.

Kali’s look told him to shut up about his invitation. “To talk about the elephant in the room.” He almost laughed when Ganesh stood up angrily, looking over at him. “Not you. The Apocalypse. We can't stop it, gang. But first things first.” He held up a finger and turned to Sam and Dean. “The adults need to have a little conversation. Check you later.” He snapped with both hands, and sent them to their hotel room while he dealt with the demi-gods.

“Long time no see, Loki,” Kali purred, leaning on her hand.

She was right. He hadn’t seen her since he fled her palace after Shiva killed Sami. She looked different, more human now, wearing the skin of a gorgeous dark-skinned woman. Gabriel swallowed the nausea that tried to fight its way out of his stomach before speaking.

“Same, Kali. How’s Shiva these days?” he asked flirtatiously.

To her side, Baldur growled at him. ‘Ah’, he smirked. ‘Baldur, huh? You have better taste than that, darling.’

“Stop changing the subject!” Baldur slammed his hand on the table. Gabriel could tell he wasn’t any less sore about Loki killing him in Scandinavia.

“Baldur, enough,” Kali shushed him. “What do you have to say about this, Loki?”

“There’s nothing to say, Kali,” Gabriel admitted, sitting down in an empty chair at the end of the table. “The end is nigh. Once Michael and Lucifer get their hands on their new suits, it’s gonna happen. That’s all she wrote.”

“There has to be something-” Ganesh broke in.

“There’s nothing. Those winged dicks are gonna rumble regardless. Best we just keep our heads down and -”

“Run?” Baldur snarled. “Like you did? No, we stay and fight. We use the vessels as bargaining chips.”

Gabriel saw his way out. “Speaking of the vessels,” he said, standing. “Let me make sure they’re kept… comfortable.” He snapped, popping into Sam and Dean’s room.

He had to admit, it was nicer than the last motel he’d seen them stay at. There were two plush red beds, with real blankets, not the cheap knock-offs most roadside motels had. The bathroom was clean and there was a faux wall made of square cut-outs blocking it off from the rest of the room. The carpet was a distinguishable red, with a small modern looking white table and chair set. Not bad taste for monsters.

“I-I-I... I don't know,” Dean was saying to Sam. “Grab those poor saps outta the freezer, I guess? Bust 'em out? Gank a few freaks along the way if we're lucky? “

“And when are you ever lucky?” Gabriel asked, sitting on the black leather couch behind them.

Dean spun around, glaring at him. “Well, you know what, bite me, Gabriel.”

Gabriel quirked an eyebrow. “Maybe later, big boy.”

“I should've known,” Dean growled. “I mean this had your stink all over it from the jump.”

Gabriel was incredulous. After all the time they’d spent together, you’d think they knew him by now. “You think I'm behind this? Please,” he said, getting up from where he’d been sitting. “I'm the Costner to your Houston. I'm here to save your ass.”

“You wanna pull us outta the fire?” Dean was too skeptical for his liking.

“Bingo!” Gabriel said. “Those guys are either gonna dust you, or use you as bait. Either way, you're uber boned.”

“Wow, 'cause a couple of months ago you were telling us that we need to “play our roles”. You're uber boning us!” Dean snapped back.

Gabriel shook his head, walking to the other side of them as he spoke. “Ohh... The end is still nigh. Michael and Lucifer are gonna dance the lambada, but not tonight. Not here.”

“And why do you care?” Dean scoffed at him.

He couldn’t tell him the real reason. He wanted to look at Sam, but he couldn’t face him, not without losing his nerve. He had to get him out of here, and Dean too.

“I don't… care,” Gabriel fumbled. “But, me and Kali we, uh, had a thing. Chick was all hands. What can I say? I'm sentimental,” he lied smoothly.

“Do they have a chance?” Sam asked. “Against Satan?”

Dean spun on his brother. “Really, Sam?”

Sam turned to him, his face dead serious, and Gabriel’s heart squeezed. “You got a better idea, Dean? “

“It's a bad idea,” he told them. “Lucifer's gonna turn them into finger paint. So let's get going while the going's good, hmm?”

“Okay. Great,” Dean said loudly. “Why don't you just zap us outta here then?”

“Would if I could, but Kali's got you by the short and curlies. It's a blood spell. You boys are on a leash.”

“What does that mean?” Dean eyed him.

“It means it's time for a bit of the old black magic,” he explained, spritzing mint into his mouth.

Dean wasn’t happy with that, looking just the tiniest bit uncomfortable. “Okay, yeah. Well, whatever. Well, we're gonna take the hors d'oeuvres in the freezer with us.”

“Forget it. It's gonna be hard enough sneaking you mooks outta here.” Gabriel flashed a look at Dean. He was already sticking his neck out. Why did he have to be so damned noble?

“They called you Loki, right?” Dean argued back. “Which means they don't really know who you are?”

“Told you. I'm in witness protection.”

“Okay, well then how about you do what we say, or we tell the, uh, legion of doom about your secret identity,” Dean threatened. “They don't seem like a real pro-angel kinda crowd.”

“I'll take your voices away,” Gabriel pushed back.

“We'll write it down.”

“I'll cut off your hands.”

Dean smirked at him. “Well then, people are gonna be asking, "Why are you guys running around with no hands?"

Gabriel sighed and looked at Sam. “Fine.”

He left them standing in their room as he poofed into Kali’s. He wanted to talk to her out of earshot.

She was undressing in front of her mirror when he appeared behind her, invisible to her eyes.

The room was dark as she studied herself in the silver reflection, hands in her dark, thick hair. The room was different than the Winchesters’, decorated to her exacting requirements, lots of red and velvet, floor to ceiling mirrors. She hadn’t changed a bit.

In his typical style, Gabriel turned the lights down low and re-appeared to lit candles with a rose in hand. “Bonjour, mon amour.”

Kali turned towards him, barely giving him a look. “Leave.”

“You always did play hard to get,” Gabriel quipped.

“I've moved on.”

“I noticed. Baldur? Really?” he scoffed.

“Baldur's uncomplicated,” she sniffed, looking him over. “I never took you for the type.”

He smirked, as he poured glass of champagne from the bottle on her table. “Romantic?”

“Pathetic.”

“You're the one who called me here,” Gabriel pointed out, holding out his glass. 

“Because I thought you might take this seriously,” she murmured.

“I am taking this seriously,” he protested. “Ship's sinking, time to get off. I mean screw this marble. Let's go check out Pandora.”

“It doesn't have to be like that,” Kali insisted. He stepped closer to her.

“I'm afraid it does.”

“If we fight-” Kali started.

“You die.” There was no use trying to sugarcoat it, not with her.

“And what makes you such an expert?” she wanted to know.

“I've tussled with those winged ass-monkeys once or twice,” he lied, taking her hands in his own. “Kali, no more tricks. I'm begging you, don't do this.”

Even if he hadn’t loved her, he didn’t want her — or any of the others — to die. They’d taken him in when he had no one. No one else should have to suffer because of his family.

“I have to.”

“Can't blame me for trying.” He shrugged. “Still love me?”

“No,” she said, pulling him into a passionate kiss. She tasted like ashes in his mouth, like death and blood and fury. Fighting through the taste and bitter memories, he grabbed for the vials of Winchester blood Kali was using to keep them there. He was clumsy in his desperation, clinking the vials against one another. He grabbed at them again, Kali’s tongue playing along the seam of his lips, his heart thrumming… He had to get them out before Lucifer came…

Suddenly Kali pushed him back, cutting him on the chin, drawing his blood.

“Ow!” he complained.

“You must take me for a fool... Gabriel,” she purred, using his true name, the first time he heard it rightfully since he’d left Heaven. “You're bound to me. Now, and forever.” She smirked, brandishing her bloody fingers.

“Kali, please,” he resorted to begging. “Please, I need to get them out, I need to get him out,” he mumbled, head bowed in supplication.

Kali regarded him for a second in her heavy lidded gaze. “It’s him, isn’t it? The tall one. He feels… familiar.”

Gabriel slowly nodded. “We’ve been tied together since the dawn of time. We find each other, and then I watch him die… I can’t do this anymore, Kali, not like this,” he begged. “Please help me save him.”

She stared at him a moment longer and her lips slowly curled into a smile. “I’m sure I can think of something.”

~~~

Act One started with Gabriel bringing everyone back to the dining room.

“How long have you known?” Gabriel stuttered, as Baron Samendi and Zao Shen dragged Dean and Sam back into the ballroom. Everyone around him looked confused.

“Long enough,” Kali spat back. She was good, looming over him as he sat at the head of one of the tables.

“How's the rescue going?” Dean said loudly.

Kali stared at him. “Well, surprise, surprise. The Trickster has tricked us.”

“Kali, don't,” he faux-pleaded.

“You're mine now,” she swore, sitting on the arm of his chair, practically in his lap. “And you have something I want.” On cue, she dragged her hand down his throat, slipping her hand into his coat and pulled out her prop. “An Archangel's blade. From the Archangel Gabriel.”

“Okay, okay! So I got wings, like Kotex,” he admitted, watching the faces of the other gods. They were buying it, hook, line and sinker. “But that doesn't make me any less right about Lucifer.”

“He's lying,” she hissed back. “He's a spy.”

“I'm not a spy. I'm a runaway,” he explained. “I'm trying to save you. I know my brother, Kali. He should scare the living crap out of you. You can't beat him. I've skipped ahead, seen how this story ends-”

“Your story. Not ours. Westerners, I swear. The sheer arrogance,” she spat. “You think you're the only ones on Earth? You pillage and you butcher in your God's name. But you're not the only religion, and he's not the only God. And now you think you can just rip the planet apart? You're wrong. There are billions of us. And we were here first.” She leaned forward, cupping his cheek in her warm hands. “If anyone gets to end this world, it's me. I'm sorry.”

She smirked and plunged the fake blade into him, twisted it. He screamed and flashed bright blue out of his eyes and mouth as he died, disappearing with a concealed wink, leaving a body double behind in his place. He then awaited act two in the Impala. He didn’t have to wait long for Dean to appear out of the hotel.

“Come on everybody! Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. Alright, alright, go, go, go! Get outta here!” Dean yelled at the people who had been in the freezer, ushering them out the door as they ran in terror. Gabriel rolled his eyes, always had to be the hero. 

“Psst! Dean!” Gabriel hissed out the cracked window, sitting in the back seat. “Don't look at me! Act natural. Get in.”

Dean gave him a look and slid into the driver’s seat of his car. “Man, there is nothing natural about this at all. I thought you were dead.”

“You think I'd give Kali my real sword?” Gabriel scoffed at him. “That thing can kill me!”

“Then what do they have in there?” Dean asked.

“A fake! Made it out of a can of diet orange Slice.” He shrugged. “So, uh, go snag our blood, would ya?”

“What?”

Dad, this kid was dense sometimes. “I heard you in there. Kali likes you. You can get close. Lift the plasma, then we vamoose.”

Kali had already agreed she would allow Dean to sweet-talk her and give the blood back. Gabriel owed her big time, but that was something he could live with. He’d settle it as soon as Sam was safe, and as far from here as possible.

“No. Hand over the real blade,” Dean demanded. “Better yet, why don't you sack up and help us take down Lucifer?”

No no no. This was not a part of his plan. Dean was supposed to grab the blood and they were supposed to leave, supposed to get Sam as far away from here as possible. He leaned across the back seat to where Dean was sitting. “You can't be serious?”

“Deadly,” Dean replied.

“Since when are you butt buddies with a bunch of monsters?” Gabriel spat. “That's all they are to you, aren't they?”

“Alright, you know, Sam was right,” Dean admitted. “It's nuts but it's the best idea I've heard, so unless you have a better one?”

“Well, good luck with that,” Gabriel replied. “Me? I'm blowing Jonestown. Those lemmings wanna run off a cliff, that's their business.”

“I see right through you, you know that?” Dean pushed back. “The smart-ass shell, the whole “I could give a crap” thing? Believe me, it takes one to know one.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow at Dean. “That so?”

“Yes. And maybe those freaks in there aren't your blood but they are your family.”

“They just stabbed me in the friggin’ heart!” Gabriel pointed out. Even if they’d planned it, he felt like Kali was enjoying it too much.

“Maybe,” Dean said. “But you still give a crap about 'em, don't you?

“Dean,” he warned. 

“Now they're gonna die in there,” Dean pushed, ignoring his warning. “Without you.”

“I can't kill my brother,” Gabriel replied flatly.

“Can't or won't?” Dean gave him a dark look and then shook his head. “That's what I thought.”

Dean didn’t say another word to him, just opened the car door and went back into the hotel, leaving Gabriel sitting in the car, alone.

Gabriel had no doubt what Dean was going to do. He was going to go back into the dining room, righteous fury blazing, and blow his cover, and in doing so, blow their only way out of here. Lucifer was on his way, and again Gabriel was helpless to protect Sam.

He got out of the Impala, and looked up at the sky. After all this time, He had finally run out of options, only one choice remaining to him.

Gabriel closed his eyes, head tipped back towards his home, remembering what he was fighting for. He allowed himself to fall into his memories, to peruse the joy and heartaches that made up his relationship with his soul. He remembered its warm weight between his hands on his wheel as a fledgling, sitting on his brother’s lap, feeling the stability and love it offered. He remembered its soothing presence as he hid from Lucifer and Michael’s fighting, until he fled to Earth, scared and alone for the first time in his long existence.

He saw Sabina and her warm smile, her kindness. He could almost taste the rose oil from her skin, the love she’d given him and then the loss as she went into the Earth, never to smile at him again.

He saw the flash of Surtr’s eyes, his compassion. He felt butterfly kisses on his closed eyelids, the stretch and drag of their lovemaking, the lilt of his voice, and the final, cruel kiss of his cold dead lips.

Sami was next, Sami whom he never got the chance to know, his fatal sacrifice, selfless to the very end. He bled slowly into Simon.

Simon, brave and cool, and clever. Simon, who never loved him. Simon, whose heart he drove his sword through, and selfishly held his last words locked in his heart forever.

Gabriel saw Stella then, dancing across his memories. He remembered her smiling, her tenacity as she fought to know him and then fought her illness. She fought until the very end, stubborn until she closed her eyes for the last time.

Finally, he saw Sam, who was all of it. Sam, who was kind and compassionate, selfless and brave, clever and stubborn. Sam was the very best of all of them. Sam, whom he was proud to love despite everything, whom he didn’t deserve.

Sam, whose name he held close to his heart as he straightened his spine and stood up.

He found him hiding behind the table in the ballroom, as Lucifer killed the demi-gods one by one.

Sam turned to Dean. “You okay?” he asked, when Gabriel appeared next to his brother.

Gabriel drank Sam in whole. “Not really. Better late than never, huh?” he said quietly, handing Dean a DVD box. “Guard this with your life.”

Lucifer was about to stomp on Kali’s prone form when Gabriel reappeared, blowing him back through the ballroom’s wooden doors with a loud bang, sword in his hand. “Lucy, I'm home.”

His brother got to his feet and stalked forward angrily. Gabriel stopped him, keeping himself between Lucifer and Sam.

“Not this time.” He picked up Kali from the floor, shoving her towards Dean and Sam. “Guys! Get her outta here.”

He watched them go, taking one last look at Sam over his shoulder. Their eyes locked for a moment, and Gabriel reached out for him, one last time, giving him a gentle caress with his grace.

Sam’s soul flickered to life inside his eyes, offering it back, before Sam turned and left.

“Over a girl. Gabriel, really?” Lucifer smirked at him for the first time since he fell. “I mean, I knew you were slumming, but I hope you didn't catch anything.”

“Lucifer, you're my brother. And I love you. But you are a great big bag of dicks.”

Gabriel positioned himself between Lucifer and the doors of the ball room. If he wanted to get to Sam, he’d have to go through him first.

“Wait, what did you just say to me?” Lucifer’s playful tone vanished, the warrior Gabriel remembered covered in blood and ichor on the battlefield peeking through. 

Long ago, that voice would have sent him cowering, but he wasn’t the same angel that ran away all those years ago, not the same scared little brother. “Look at yourself! Boo hoo!” Gabriel mocked him out loud. “Daddy was mean to me, so I'm gonna smash up all his toys.”

“Watch your tone,” the decaying vessel Lucifer was occupying warned

“Play the victim all you want. But you and me? We know the truth. Dad loved you best. More than Michael, more than me.” Gabriel taunted, drunk on his own bravado.“Then he brought the new baby home and you couldn't handle it. So this is all just one big temper tantrum. Time to grow up!” He waved his blade in the air to prove his point.

“Gabriel,” Lucifer said. “If you're doing this for Michael... “

“Screw him,” Gabriel spat back at him. “If he were standing here, I'd shiv his ass too.”

Lucifer huffed. “You disloyal-”

“Oh, I'm loyal,” Gabriel pushed back “To them!”

Gabriel and Lucifer circled each other, neither of them giving an inch, Grace flaring out around them .It smelled like the battlefields of long ago, burning ozone and wrath.

“Who?” Lucifer challenged him. “These so called Gods?”

“To people, Lucifer. People.”

“So you're willing to die, for a pile of cockroaches. Why?” Lucifer asked.

“Because Dad was right. They are better than us.”

“They are broken. Flawed! Abortions,” Lucifer snarled back.

“Damn right they're flawed. But a lot of them try. To do better, to forgive,” Gabriel explained. “And you should see the Spearmint Rhino! I've been riding the pine a long time. But I'm in the game now, and I'm not on your side, or Michael's. I'm on theirs.”

He looked his brother dead in the eyes, the same eyes he’d laughed and fought under as a fledgling, the same eyes that looked at him the day he created Sam’s soul, the same eyes who lied to him then. 

Gabriel was no match for Lucifer, physically or otherwise, but all his years among the pagans had taught him one thing; a little misdirection went a long way. 

He knew what he could do, what he had to do. 

“Brother, don't make me do this,” Lucifer said

“No one makes us do anything,” Gabriel mimicked, repeating Lucifer’s words from so long ago, the day Gabriel had left Heaven.

Lucifer’s eyes sparked in recognition, and his lips curled into a terrible grin. 

“I know you think you're doing the right thing, Gabriel. But I know where your heart truly lies.”

Gabriel appeared behind Lucifer, holding his real blade, ready to strike. He spared only a moment for guilt, for tricking his brother, playing on the affection between them. He loved Lucifer, but his brother had made his choice long ago, and he forced Gabriel’s hand. There was no other choice, not now, not for him. 

Sam Winchester wouldn’t be Lucifer’s vessel. 

Not while Gabriel had breath in his lungs. 

He advanced on his brother, his grace pulled taut by his copies. He was long out of practice. 

Gabriel felt as if he was in slow motion, as he watched Lucifer flip, grabbing the blade and burying it in his chest.

Gabriel let out a strangled groan, as Lucifer’s grace held him close, stroking him like a parent would a sick child.

“Here. Amateur hocus pocus,” Lucifer whispered in his human ear. “Don't forget, you learned all your tricks from me, little brother.”

Gabriel felt his grace begin to unravel, fracturing inside him, pushing outward and his thoughts turned to Sam. 

_I love you, Sam_

_I love you,_

_I love_

_I-_

_._  
.  
.  
.  
. 


	11. Epilouge: Stull Cemetery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I want you for always…days, years, eternities."~Franz Schubert

When Gabriel touched down, he wasn’t alone. 

He blinked at the bright light, confused at why he was there. Lucifer had stabbed him, he should be dead, but he wasn’t. Gabriel felt a warm hand on his shoulder, and a twinge of peace, a peace he hadn’t felt since…

_Dad?_

There was no answer, but Gabriel knew all the same. His Father had given him a second chance, a chance to protect Sam. 

Gabriel looked around. He was in the middle of a cemetery and he knew right away what was happening. Sam had said yes, and Lucifer was pummeling Dean within an inch of his life. 

“Sammy? Are you in there?” Dean begged, not even raising a hand to protect himself. 

“Oh, he's in here, all right,” Lucifer-wearing-Sam growled, punching Dean again. “And he's gonna feel the snap of your bones.” Another blow, and Dean fell to the ground. “Every single one.” 

He hauled Dean to his feet. “We’re gunna take our time.” he drawled, beating Dean to a pulp. 

“Sam, it's okay. It's okay. I'm here. I'm here. I'm not gonna leave you.” Dean spat through bloody, swollen lips “I'm not gonna leave you.”

Lucifer-wearing-Sam drew back his fist for another punch, but the blow never came. 

Gabriel stepped in front of him, holding him, invisible to anyone but Lucifer. He could see the disbelief that flashed across Sam’s features as Lucifer realized what had happened. 

_‘Brother,’_ he said gravely, his true voice reverberating over his Grace. Gabriel ignored him.

 _‘Brother, answer me.’_ Nothing

 _‘Brother, please,’_ Lucifer’s true voice inside him hurt, hitting Gabriel like a ton of bricks.

Finally he answered. _‘Why him, brother? You can feel his soul too, why?’_

Gabriel could feel Sam struggling against his brother, a fighter even when he knew he’d lost. 

_‘I’m sorry, brother,’_ Lucifer murmured across his grace, _‘It was never to hurt you… but when I touched it, there on your wheel… it was perfect. You weren’t supposed to bond with it… if I had known...’_

Gabriel saw himself in Lucifer’s lap, Sam’s soul in front of them, Lucifer’s fingers skimming along the surface, the black streaks he’d left in his wake… _‘It was you… you who prevented me from saving them… all this time…’_

 _‘I’m sorry, brother,’_ Lucifer said in Enochian again. _‘I needed it, and it needed to be prepared, primed and tempered through its trials. ’_

It all finally made sense to Gabriel. The deaths and suffering, each bringing Sam closer and closer to his destiny. To be Lucifer’s vessel, he had to be strong.

 _‘Spare him,’_ Gabriel pleaded across his grace. _‘Let him go. There’s still time, please. I can’t watch it again.’_

 _‘You know I can’t, little brother,’_ Lucifer laughed mirthlessly. _'It’s much too late for that.'_

 _‘The soul then,'_ he begged. He had to try. _'You don’t need it, just his body. Please, Let me have his so-' ___

 _'I can’t ,'_ Lucifer cut him off.

_'You asked me before, what side I was on,'_ he pushed back. _‘I’m on his side,’_ Gabriel added in his mother tongue. He willed his memories across their bond, showing him the many faces of the soul he had loved, the highlights and tragedies of a love that had spanned millions of years. Finally, he felt Lucifer shudder through his grace.

 _‘I can’t spare him, but I can help you,’_ Lucifer’s voice hummed. _‘I can spare you this pain again.”_

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. _'I’m sure you would, devil.'_

Lucifer’s eyes flashed at the slur. _‘This is getting tiresome, Gabriel. Step aside. It’s almost time.’_

Gabriel pushed back. _‘No,’_ he said, putting his hands on Sam. _‘You can’t have him.”_

_‘Watch me.’_

_Gabriel reached inside Sam. “Fight it, Sammy,” he channeled his voice across the bond, past what was left of Lucifer’s battered Grace and directly into Sam’s soul. “You can do this, kiddo. You’re stronger than this.”_

_'Gabriel, enough!'_

Gabriel ignored him. He was going to save Sam Winchester. 

He brought out Sam’s happiest memories in this life, snatches and snippets of his life with his brother. 

Lucifer roared as Sam fought back, his grace flaring out at Gabriel, burning where it struck him. 

_“You...can’t...have...him,”_ Gabriel snarled back at him, digging deeper into the recesses of Sam’s soul, pulling out memories buried even deeper, from his past lives, all of them. 

Sabina and Gabriel twirling in the snow on Saturnalia, their laughter filling the air

Gabriel and Surtr curling around each other like cats during the cold Scandinavian winter. 

Sami climbing into the banyan tree and Gabriel’s heart breaking. 

Simon and Gabriel, laughing and dicing with the King of England. 

Gabriel holding Stella during their last dance before she shut her eyes for the last time. 

He felt Sam feed on the memories, sucking them down deep into his soul, and a shudder passed through him as he took hold and pushed Lucifer back. 

His fist unclenched, and he took control of his body. Slowly, he let go of Dean, who fell back against the Impala. Gabriel stayed put, clinging to the bright light of Sam’s soul.

“It’s okay, Dean,” Sam said, his voice strained with the weight of all he was holding back. “It’s gonna be okay. I’ve got him.” 

Gabriel helped him, trapping his brother so Sam could do what he needed to do. 

He threw the Horseman’s rings. 

“Bvtmon tabges babalon,” he chanted, Gabriel mouthing the words right along with him. 

The grassy knoll where the rings had landed collapsed in on itself, sucking everything down with it. 

Gabriel watched as Sam and Dean exchanged glances, and Sam took a deep, terrible breath.

‘No!’ Lucifer screamed, fighting now with all his might, thrashing like a wild animal caught in a trap. 

Finally, Michael chimed in. Michael, whom Gabriel hadn't seen since he left Heaven, his big brother. 

He looked much the same as he always had, except for his eyes. They were sad, heavy with the weight of the responsibility their Father had forced on the both of them. 

“Sam!” he yelled. “It's not gonna end this way! Step back!” 

Gabriel kept pushing. 

“You're gonna have to make me!” Sam shouted back. 

“I have to fight my brother, Sam!” Michael’s voice cracked. “Here and now! It's my destiny!”

Sam took one final look at his brother, and spread his arms out wide. 

Michael leaped forward and grabbed Sam’s jacket, trying to stop him, but Sam used his force against him, dragging them all into the pit together. 

Gabriel’s last view of Earth was Dean Winchester, bloody and beaten, with his head tipped back against the Impala, and it’s that image that keeps him sane until they hit the bottom. 

His brothers don’t even wait until they’d settled to start tearing into each other, leaving him and Sam huddled in a corner. 

Watching them do this was the reason he left Heaven in the first place, and now he has a front row seat to his worst nightmare until the end of eternity. 

He would happily endure it, for Sam.

In Heaven, Sam had comforted him, offering him protection and solace, and now he finally had a chance to pay him back. 

Gabriel cradled Sam against him, wrapping his Grace in a layer around him, shielding him the best he could. 

“I got you, kiddo, just like old times, ” Gabriel crooned. “Since I think we’re gunna be here awhile, I think a story is in order, and boy, do I have one for you.” He tried to block out Lucifer and Michael’s screams with his voice. 

“Once upon a time, there was a fledgling. He wasn’t good at much. He wasn’t a born leader like his brother Michael, or clever like his brother Lucifer, or talented like his brother, Raphael. The only things he was good at were pranks and magic…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again I wanted to say thank you to everyone who helped me with this, and my readers. You've left me such wonderful feedback, and I really appreciate your support.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this. Special thanks to Beng and Cee, who have kept me going through all of this. Thank you to Wolfie, Sima, McKenzi, Toasty, Faye, Tyler, Archangel, Candi and my wonderful fiancé, who have given me the feedback I needed.
> 
> Amazing Cover Image by drawingoddities on Tumblr
> 
> Wonderful Lucifer and bby! Gabriel fanart commissioned from the amazing Iamthetwickster on Tumblr!


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